Flashes
by kitsunerei88
Summary: A series of companion pieces and one-shots to do with The Revolutionary Arc (Breaking the Lines, Liar Liar, From America with Love, Vanguard, and Cataclysm).
1. Smoke and Ash

_**Smoke And Ash**_

 _Summary: Alexander Willoughby is not entirely human. Some would say he is entirely inhuman, but it is with an entirely human sense of curiosity that he sits down beside Aldon Rosier in their very first Magical Theory class. (Liar Liar)_

 _AN: This is a companion one-shot to my piece Liar Liar, so this won't make much sense unless you've read Liar Liar in its entirety. So if you haven't finished reading that work, I highly recommend you do so because, uh, spoilers abound! Also, everyone can thank meek-bookworm for this piece being written - she is an Alex/Aldon shipper, so I wrote this with that in mind for her birthday. She liked it and wanted to share._

XXX

Aldon Rosier smells like smoke and ash.

It's not a real scent – it's nothing that anyone else would notice. Anyone else would think Aldon smells like lavender, probably the outrageously, overly expensive soap his mother sends him from the south of France, but to Alex, Aldon smells like smoke and ash, like anger.

Alex notices, because Alex isn't entirely human. Some would say he is entirely inhuman, but it is with an almost human sense of curiosity that Alex walks up to his desk, to the pale-faced, half-smiling youth in their very first Magical Theory class, to the boy who smells like anger.

"May I sit?" he asks, the instinct to clip his words in public second nature, now.

Aldon wordlessly pulls his bag off the seat beside him, and Alex sits. He sits there, twice a week, for the next three years, silently surrounded by the scent of smoke and ash and fire. Sometimes, Alex catches the sour, acid tang of fear, or damp, moldy resignation, or, rarely, the salt sea-breeze wind of desperation, but the anger is always there, simmering just out of sight. And Aldon always smiles, laughs, he is always at ease, even if he smells like a charcoal briquette.

They don't talk much, then. Magical Theory isn't one of those classes that promotes group work or chatter. Over three years, they say nothing to each other but greetings and farewells.

XXX

Alex has two lives: one in Wizarding Britain, and one in Serbia.

In Wizarding Britain, he is Alexander Willoughby, pureblood wizard from a middle-class, unremarkable family in Sussex. He lives with his mother and his maternal grandparents. His mother works as a consultant with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, specializing in Eastern European creatures, his grandmother as a sales manager with the Daily Prophet, his grandfather as a contract potions supplier for one of the shops in Diagon Alley. His father, they say, is an Eastern European pureblood, deceased, and the Willoughbys are so unremarkable, and Serbia is so far away, that the Ministry of Magic takes his falsified family tree at face value.

At Hogwarts, Alex is sorted into Ravenclaw, his mother's house. His grades are good but not exceptional, and while he does particularly well in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Duelling, he does not stand out. In terms of magical strength, he is powerful, but not remarkably so, there are many of about the same magical strength. He's friendly, even if he doesn't have any close friends, and in a House of introverts, that is not unusual. Overall, Alex flies under the radar. Life is simple, peaceful, relaxing, in Wizarding Britain.

But in Serbia, he is Aleksandr Willoughby Dragić, and he is a prince of his kind. He is dhampir, but he is also a wizard, and there are only three of them in the world. He is slotted early for command and trained under their strongest, most senior fighters. He learns tactics, strategy, three other languages, and he works hard to learn it because one day, he'll be the one leading their troops into danger and, hopefully, out of it. He learns about leadership; he learns honour and he learns duty, and those concepts are written into his soul. He learns the sword, and the knife, and the gun, and hand-to-hand combat, and he learns to use his inhuman strength and speed to his best advantage with people who are dhampir, like him, who are just as fast and just as strong and, even unmagical, just as dangerous.

Life in Serbia is anything but peaceful. He has his first blood at thirteen – it's a bad assassination attempt, and Alex thinks the coven thought he would be caught unprepared. It's touch and go for a few minutes, before he manages to have his sword out and in the right size and shape for his hand, but once he has it there's no question. He beheads two vampires that day before his backup arrives. Given the circumstances, the Council permits him to undergo his Ordeal at fifteen, a year earlier than normal, and he kneels and swears his oaths that same year.

When he returns to his other life, he's always relieved. Wizarding Britain is too safe, and the need to hide what he is, who he is, all the things he can do and is most proud of doing, is wearying. But in Serbia, the weight of duty and responsibility lies heavy, and even if it is duty willingly shouldered, sometimes he wants a break.

XXX

In sixth-year, he and Aldon are friends. There is no NEWT-level course in Magical Theory, but they have Curse-breaking together, and that's even better. Their classmates are all Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, again, and it's easy for Alex to say, "Shall we partner?" and Aldon simply nods. The smoke and ash are stronger, now. Aldon smells like an overblown campfire, but he still smiles easily, relaxed, as if he doesn't notice how angry he really is.

He might not, Alex realizes the fifth or sixth time they work together on the curse-boxes. In the Ravenclaw experimentation rooms, Aldon is breezy, even when he's being deadly serious, even when he's ripping apart curses with a technical proficiency and elegance that seems completely at odds with his Dark, aggressive magic. But that's Aldon in a nutshell, isn't it? He's elegant even in his fury, always neatly pressed and put together, always ready with a flippant remark or two. Aldon floats through life on an air of nonchalance and boredom – but he smells like a house on fire.

Alex wants to know what's behind that lying smile, but he doesn't ask. He doesn't even know how to ask. He's never tried to get closer to others; with his background, getting close to others is a risk. It would take only a few, unguarded instances: a true smile, a few words too many, a misjudgement of his strength or his speed, and there would be questions. So, he doesn't ask, and instead they meet, every few days, to work on first their curse-boxes, then on Charms and Transfigurations and their other work, and Alex waits, watches, and is almost surprised to realize that, smiles and laughter aside, Aldon is almost as alone as he is.

XXX

Dhampir don't have relationships. Not the same way that humans do, not fixed, permanent ones. There is no dhampir conception of marriage. Life itself is temporary, a burning candle flame all too easily snuffed out, and the Order comes first. The Order, and duty, always comes first, and so few understand that. Even for those that do, a true dhampir would never allow it – the covens are always watching, and they know how to target a weak point. Just as Alex knows that the best way to target a vampire lord is through his mate.

A true dhampir loves in short, passionate bursts, and lets them go.

Sometimes, these short, passionate bursts result in children – if they are dhampir, they are brought into the Order. If they are not, they, and their non-dhampir parent, are sent to a safe zone, like Britain, or notoriously speciesist America. Even then, sometimes, the covens manage a hit. That's very hard – that can break even a strong dhampir.

So, the dhampir don't have relationships. And Alex knows Aldon well enough now to know that Aldon, if he ever truly fell in love, would need permanence. Aldon, underneath his smokescreen of breezy nonchalance, underneath the angry scents of smoke and ash, is Alex's favourite blade. He is strong, steadfast, fire-hardened steel, and whoever he fell in love with one day would probably have the complete and utter power to break him.

Alex refuses to be that person, and instead he spends sixth-year sleeping his way through Ravenclaw Tower. He never makes any promises, but he gains a reputation as a heartbreaker anyway.

XXX

In seventh-year, everything changes.

His ears perk up at the news of the Triwizard Tournament. Unlike most of his schoolmates, he's heard of the Tournament before – wizarding communities in the East have been abuzz with it for months. It sounds interesting, and an excellent way to exercise a bit, amuse himself and pass the time within the confines of his role in Wizarding Britain.

He puts his name in, smiles tightly at Aldon who is throwing him a look from the Slytherin table, and there's no surprise when his name is pulled. The first task, a curse-breaking exercise, is thrilling only because of the imposed time limit, and the fact that Cedric, who should have really won the task outright, does not know how to take a calculated risk. The second, Alex has to think – he could probably take on a dragon physically, but not without revealing his particular abilities, so he doesn't bother with that approach. Instead, he transfigures a loose pebble into a shield and resorts to examining the Hogwarts wards for the loop that will let him reprogram the Anti-Apparition ward temporarily. He finds it, changes the parameters to allow him to Apparate across the field, and twists in the air. He has a ribbon almost before anyone realizes it.

And yet, he only secures the alternate position, because Rigel Black's bravery in saving McLaggen's life takes precedence. That's interesting, especially because Black has spent months insisting that he didn't put his name into the Goblet and clearly planned on throwing the second task entirely.

Alex should be disappointed, but he's not. It is what it is, and Alex has a creeping sixth sense that there's something else going on in this Tournament. And, in any case, the alternate position, Cho tells him, is the de facto leader, and Alex knows how to lead.

XXX

Aldon smells like smoke and ash and gunpowder when he finds Alex in his study room. He's still carrying the undertones of anger, but he's also determined, even if his eyes are dancing, his hands are loose in his pockets, his voice is so carefully mild. He wants a spot on the support team, for reasons that Alex can only guess, and Alex is curious.

Aldon asks what spot he should apply for, and Alex hesitates only a second before he recommends Aldon try for a strategist position. He's entirely honest in saying that Aldon is the best magical theorist at Hogwarts, that he would be helpful in a way that no one else could. He hesitates only because he wants to ask why.

Aldon dances through life, skimming the surface, and he has never smelled like gunpowder. Alex wants to know what, exactly, would bring him to it. But his second of hesitation too much, because Aldon notices.

"I sense a "but" in there, Alex," Aldon says, his voice casual and delicate, light, even if Alex knows he's being utterly serious. He doesn't answer, and the silences stretches between them as he shuffles the papers that Cho gave him, organizing them into neat piles on the desk in front of him. Aldon's finger taps the wood, a quiet sound that hits Alex's sharp hearing like a heavy drum.

"But _nothing_ , Aldon," he says finally, looking up from his papers. There is no asking, because Alex doesn't even know where he would begin. Aldon nods slowly, and Alex guesses that he doesn't believe him in the slightest, but he lets it go.

It's surprisingly easy to convince the other Triwizard team members to accept Aldon as a strategist. Cedric is supportive, as Alex knew he would be, and Rigel only blinks slowly and shrugs. Rigel reeks of resignation, of damp caverns and mold, and Alex knows he'll be of no help. It's only Angelina who really needs convincing, and she barely knows Aldon, and just like that Aldon is on the team.

XXX

After the first match, Alex is _pissed_.

Even with all their preparation, Hogwarts is just not ready for a powerhouse like the American Institute of Magic. Part of it is unavoidable; a Natural Legilimens would have been difficult to fight in any situation, and no one could have expected that AIM would have invented a new channeling method. But a large part of it _is_ avoidable; they knew that one of them could be a Natural Legilimens. They knew AIM had a reputation for innovation. They knew AIM historically came to compete with _new_ things, and they should have prepared better for it. And, of course, they didn't need to lose Angelina so soon. That is a serious error attributed only to pureblood supremacist arrogance, and Alex fully intends to see that corrected as soon as possible.

And that is before the fact that someone has interfered in the Tournament. Jessica Calderon-Boot nearly died – Alex doesn't recognize the exact curse, but he knows when the AIM Healers pull out the Blood-Replenishing Potion and Portkey her out that it is serious. Cuts, even serious ones, are not especially difficult to heal by magic, so he guesses it must be an anti-coagulating curse of some kind, one that they cannot reverse immediately. Someone tried to kill her, and suddenly the Tournament is much more dangerous than it was. And so, Alex flips his switch, uses every ounce of presence and command that he's ever been trained with to control the room. The air is hot with the smell of smoke and ash, and the bitter, coffee smell of worry.

He kicks Bulstrode out. She erred, grievously so, and in his world her failure to report relevant information, along with her reaction, would have been a court-martial at least. Probably not a serious sentence – not death. But a citation, absolutely, and demotion had she been in command. So, he kicks her out.

He doesn't hesitate to use Aldon as his enforcer. Aldon, who always smells like smoke and ash and gunpowder, is finally letting the cracks appear in his flippant demeanour. Sometimes, rarely, he says things, implies things – and Alex finally guesses his secret.

Truth-speakers are rare, but not so rare – they are only rare in Britain because of the blood discrimination laws. Truth-speakers are all halfbloods, because the magic needs to be a touch wild, but not too wild, just enough to break the usual laws of magic. That Aldon is a Truth-speaker and, therefore, a halfblood, explains the smoke and ash.

The gunpowder, though, is something else. The gunpowder determination is new, and Alex wants to see how far that goes, and when Aldon steps forward to protect Rigel, who smells of pungent, gasoline guilt, he pushes and demands a blood-oath from his only friend.

Aldon, shockingly, accepts, and he smells like a burning battlefield.

XXX

When Harriett Potter is unmasked, Aldon smells of smoke and ash and gunpowder, with notes of citrus fear and sharp, salty desperation. He holds on, acts as Harriett's eyes throughout the whole ordeal, and with a strong dose of luck, they get her out. And when she returns to Hogwarts, the drifting scent of smoke and ash and gunpowder pours off Aldon in waves all afternoon.

No one else smells like smoke and ash and gunpowder. Everyone else smells like rain and thunderstorms, like shock.

When she escapes, Alex knows without having to ask that Aldon did it. Aldon, a fellow halfblood and Slytherin, and the best magical theorist the school has to offer, is the only one who could have been behind it. And when he sees Aldon again, the gunpowder is gone, replaced by dust.

The smoke and ash is still there, lying underneath everything, but the predominant scent Aldon gives off is hot desert desolation. He bullies Aldon back out into the field with him, but the strong scent of loss, of hopelessness, doesn't come off him. He's worried, but he isn't sure what to do about it, and instead he takes out his worry and anger on the two Chinese fighters in the Tournament.

They said that Li Xiao Lang was an accomplished fencer. They lied. He is nothing compared to Alex's skills, and Alex toys with him for a few minutes, just enough to get a sense of his abilities, and then pulls a beginner's trick and cracks his skull with the butt of his blade, knocking him out, when he lunges and overextends himself. He weaves an old Slavic hunting spell for Lin Fei Long, and duels her while Cedric and Angelina take on Wu Ji Bai jointly. The minute Aldon reports that Wu out of the game, Alex overwhelms Lin and backhands her viciously across the face, breaking her jaw and knocking her out. And that is how the Hogwarts wins the Triwizard Tournament.

But Aldon still smells like the desert, and Alex worries.

XXX

Rookwood catches him outside their Duelling class. Rookwood smells like bitter, dark coffee, of worry.

"Willoughby," he says, inclining his head in respect. Rookwood is always cautious around him, since he found out that Alex is not entirely human. "Have you spoken to Aldon recently? He is … not himself."

Alex doesn't know how to respond to that. In a literal sense, he has spoken to Aldon recently, because they still have Curse-breaking together, but that isn't what Rookwood is asking. And he is in public, so he can't talk freely.

"I agree," he settles on eventually. "You are his closest friend."

"I _was_ his closest friend," Rookwood corrects him quietly, and Alex catches a drifting scent of spice, cinnamon and cardamom sadness. "In some things, he would confide in me, but… not in this. He believes I wouldn't understand, that I couldn't understand."

Alex looks around, but the training grounds are empty, now. He lowers his voice anyway. "His blood-status."

"And my engagement to Alesana Selwyn," Rookwood shakes his head, a note of salty sea-breeze coming off him between the coffee, the cinnamon and cardamom spice. "He won't talk to me."

There is a moment of pause, but Alex knows there's no other answer but agreement.

XXX

Rookwood lets him into the Slytherin common room that night, and he finds Aldon in the smallest study room. His Ward Construction notes in front of him, and he smells like dust and cold, clean, tundra exhaustion, the notes of smoke and ash only hints. He throws a Muffliato spell on the door and looks at Aldon pointedly until the orange-eyed boy pulls out his wand with a sigh and weaves a privacy ward on the door.

He tells Aldon about things he's never spoken about to anyone in Wizarding Britain, feeling his worlds mesh, ever so slightly. Anyone in Britain who needed to know already knew, and of course all of this is common knowledge in Serbia. He tells him about his family – about his mother, a witch, about his father, a dhampir, killed in the line of duty. He tells him about the codes of honour, about the oaths he has sworn, about choice. He talks about the concepts he has engraved in his soul, about honour and duty and faith, and he asks what Aldon has engraved on his soul. What does Aldon want? Who will Aldon choose to be?

And he knows he has succeeded when the scent of hot dust and cold tundra bleed away, when the smoke and ash assault his nose, and the smell of gunpowder is back.

Aldon Rosier smells like war, and he smells _right_ , and Alex can't help but be drawn, a moth to a flame.

XXX

 _AN: As a warning, in some ways this isn't really consistent with Liar Liar or anything else. I was trying to write something pretty and artsy, so - can Alex literally smell emotions? I don't know. This is just what happens when I try to write something poetic (disaster!). As always, love reading your comments or reviews, whether here or on discord!_


	2. Ministry v Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier

**_Ministry v. Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier_**

 _Summary: PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL. A Memorandum of Law regarding the Ministry v. Aldon_ _Étienne Blake Rosier for Blood Identity Theft, by Penelope Clearwater, Junior Prosecutor. (Chapter 8, Vanguard.)_

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 **MEMORANDUM OF THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC**

 **DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE**

 **TO: The Minister of Justice**

 **FROM: Penelope Clearwater, Junior Prosecutor**

 **DATE: September 6, 1995**

 **RE:** _ **Ministry vs. Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier**_

 _ **Proposed Charge: Blood Identity Theft**_

* * *

You have asked me to prepare a legal analysis and recommendation regarding the case of Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier (hereinafter, "Blake Rosier"), now a known halfblood, on the charge of blood identity theft pursuant to his graduation from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (hereinafter, "Hogwarts"). Included in your instructions, you have requested that I address the following questions:

1\. Whether a charge against Blake Rosier for blood identity theft is likely to be successful;

2\. Whether it is possible that Blake Rosier may be able to summon Justice for his own trial, and if so, the possible results; and,

3\. Whether the Ministry should proceed with the proposed charge.

You have advised me that you are not interested in pursuing legal action against either Lord or Lady Rosier. Accordingly, I will not be addressing the matter of any charges against either Lord or Lady Rosier for their involvement.

 **SHORT ANSWER**

1\. It does not appear that a charge against Blake Rosier for blood identity theft can be sustained. Although the _actus reus_ can be easily substantiated, there is insufficient evidence to show that Blake Rosier had the required _mens rea_ for the offence.

2\. Blake Rosier has the right to summon Justice to preside his own trial. Although it is unknown whether Blake Rosier _himself_ may summon Justice to preside over his own trial, it does not appear that doing so would have any real impact on Blake Rosier's ability to defend his case. Further, strong incentives exist for another Truth-Speaker to identify themselves for a second trial on blood identity theft.

3\. The Ministry should not proceed with the proposed charge. The risks of proceeding, politically and legally, far outweigh any potential benefits of the charge, especially seeing as the charge is unlikely to succeed.

 **FACTS**

Blake Rosier was born on or about May 24, 1977. He was registered at birth in Wizarding Britain as Aldon Étienne Rosier, the son of Lord Evan Titus Rosier and Lady Eveline Grace Rosier, née Avery. As the Heir to a Book of Copper noble family, Blake Rosier received the standard education of most noble children: Wizarding History, Etiquette, Literature, Arithmetic, and Basic Spellcasting. He developed close childhood connections with several other noble and high-ranking families, particularly Edmund Rookwood, Alesana Selwyn, and Pandora Parkinson.

At eleven years of age, Blake Rosier entered Hogwarts, where he was sorted into Slytherin House and saw moderate, but unremarkable, success. Academically, his strengths were Charms, Magical Theory, Ancient Runes, Ward Construction and Curse-breaking, though his marks were generally above average. He was known to be academically inclined and theoretical, and he harboured hopes of completing a Mastery in Magical Theory. He continued his close relationships with Rookwood, Selwyn, and Parkinson, and he developed relationships with Rigel Black, now known to be Harriett Potter in disguise, Draco Malfoy, Lucian Bole, Adrian Pucey, and others.

In his seventh year, Blake Rosier was selected for the Hogwarts Triwizard Team, where he acted as the strategist for Rigel Black. Although Blake Rosier was the first to identify Harriett by name when she was revealed, Harriett's known physical identifiers, being the Potter attributes and bright green eyes, as well as her close relationship to the true Arcturus Rigel Black, are well known among Wizarding Society; her identity was not difficult to deduce.

Blake Rosier graduated Hogwarts in June 1995 with impressive marks in Curse-breaking and Ward Construction, also completing NEWTs in Charms, Transfigurations, Ancient Runes and Potions. Until the trial, it was believed that he would be taking the summer off before joining his father at the Rosier Investment Trust.

However, on July 10, 1995 at the Arcturus Rigel Black trial (hereinafter, "the Black Trial"), Blake Rosier revealed himself to be a Truth-Speaker, a wizard capable of identifying lies spoken close to him and of summoning the Incarnation of Justice. Although it is clear that Blake Rosier was aware of his gift prior to the trial, it is not known when he became aware of his abilities.

On the request of the defence, Blake Rosier summoned Justice to hear the trial, and as a result, he was possessed. It was revealed under possession, that Blake Rosier's biological parents were the Lord Rosier and Christina Stephanie Blake, a Muggleborn witch who, until recently, worked at the Rosier Investment Trust as the Director of the New Developments Division.

It is evident that Lord and Lady Rosier engineered an elaborate cover-up of the circumstances of Blake Rosier's birth. The archives of the _Daily Prophet_ state that Lady Rosier was severely ill throughout her supposed pregnancy and was not seen in public, and Lord Rosier on several occasions expressed his deep concern for the health of his wife. There is no record of Miss Blake in Wizarding Britain throughout the pregnancy, and the nature of her relationship with Lord Rosier remains unknown. However, it is sufficient for the purposes of this memorandum to conclude that, once Blake Rosier was born, Miss Blake was somehow convinced to give up the child to his biological father, and the Lord and Lady Rosier raised Blake Rosier as if he were their legitimate child.

Subsequent to the Black Trial, the Department of Justice issued a surveillance warrant for Blake Rosier, on the basis that he, as a legal halfblood who recently graduated from Hogwarts, may be a rallying point for resistance against the Ministry.

Presently, based on the reports of said surveillance, Blake Rosier has been disowned by the Rosiers and is using the name Aldon Étienne Blake. He resides in Muggle London with Miss Blake, his biological mother, who has left the Rosier Investment Trust in favour of beginning her own firm, Blake & Associates. Blake & Associates continues to have its offices in Diagon Alley.

It appears that Blake Rosier has presently abandoned his magical heritage. He has shorn his hair into a fashionable hairstyle among Muggles and has adopted Muggle dress. He has only been seen once in Diagon Alley since the Black Trial and has never attended at either the Rosier Investment Trust or at the Blake & Associates office. Instead, it appears that Blake Rosier has obtained employment in Muggle London, and he takes Muggle transportation both to and from his place of work. Given Blake Rosier's lack of Muggle credentials, but his professional dress and manners, surveillance reports speculate that he has obtained Muggle employment as an administrative assistant, receptionist, or office clerk. Repeated scans of the area show no signs of magic either in or around his office building.

It is not known whether Blake Rosier is contact with any of his former associates. While Rookwood and Selwyn have been away on an extended Grand Tour of the world since before the Black Trial, Blake Rosier does not appear to have met with any of his other friends or acquaintances since the end of the Black Trial. He appears to have developed some connection with the Blacks, as he continues to visit the Grimmauld Place frequently, but otherwise he remains largely in the Muggle world.

 **THE LAW**

 _Blood Identity Theft: Section 434 of the Criminal Code_

Section 434 of the Criminal Code states:

 _434\. Any halfblood or Muggleborn who presents himself or herself as a pureblood with the intent of receiving a direct benefit as a result of pureblood status is guilty of an offence punishable by no less than two years in Azkaban prison._

Pursuant to section 430 of the Criminal Code, a pureblood includes a person who has four magic-using grandparents, a Muggleborn includes a witch or wizard whose parents and grandparents are unable to use magic, and a halfblood includes any witch or wizard who is not either a pureblood or a Muggleborn.

Previous cases have established that the _mens rea_ for the offence is the knowledge that one is a halfblood or Muggleborn and that one is receiving a benefit that one shouldn't, and the _actus reus_ is the receipt of the direct benefit itself. The halfblood or Muggleborn need not directly present themselves as a pureblood, and must only fail to correct an assumption made that they are a pureblood with the intent of receiving the benefit to which they are not entitled ( _Ministry v. Duff,_ 1991 Wiz 5499). Both the _mens rea_ and the _actus reus_ are required for a criminal conviction.

The standard of proof, as in all criminal cases, is beyond a reasonable doubt.

 _Summoning Justice_

Nothing in the current Criminal Code addresses the right to trial by Justice. However, the right to trial by Justice is a preserved noble right confirmed in the _Charter of Noble Rights_ of 1071 and reaffirmed in the years 1241, 1357 and 1449. The last recorded invocation of Justice, prior to the Black Trial, took place in 1586 for the crime of high treason.

Based on a review of the case law, trial by Justice is available only to nobles and to _blood nobles_ , defined as persons directly descended from the nobility without nobility themselves. Most commonly, blood nobles are noble bastards.

There are no cases in which the Truth-Speaker invoking Justice is also the accused. That said, given the dearth of cases, it is not known whether a noble or blood noble Truth-Speaker charged with an offence may invoke Justice, or if a different Truth-Speaker need be found.

However, practically speaking, the primary difficulties of a Truth-Speaker summoning Justice to preside over their own trial are two-fold: first, the Truth-Speaker is possessed and is unable to testify in their own defense. Second, on sentencing, it is not clear how Justice may enact the sentence on the body that it is itself possessing. Neither of these objections appear to be insurmountable.

The right to silence is well-established in the common law. The onus is on the prosecution to prove all elements of the offence, and no accused need testify in their own defense. Further, no adverse inference may be made based on an accused's decision not to testify in their own defense. Although a Truth-Speaker may be unable to testify in their own defence in a trial wherein they are also the invoker of Justice, this may well be a minor consequence. Further, it is not clear what Justice is capable of doing, but Justice is eternal while each Truth-Speaker is ephemeral—It is possible that Justice may well be able to conduct the full range of sentences even from within the accused's body.

 **ANALYSIS**

 _A Charge of Blood Identity Theft Against Blake Rosier is Unlikely to Succeed_

It does not appear that a charge of blood identity theft against Blake Rosier would be successful. Notably, while Blake Rosier clearly fulfills the _actus reus_ of the offence, being that he has received a Hogwarts education while being a halfblood, it is not clear whether Blake Rosier ever met the _mens rea_ required for the offence.

As a Truth-Speaker, Blake Rosier's gift must have awakened at some point before he was thirteen years of age. However, it is unclear when, precisely, he began to be able to detect others' lies, or what he was able to deduce. He was known to be insightful, but there was never any indication that he knew or suspected the truth of his origins. It is reasonable to conclude, given his intense interest in magical theory, that he may have suspected that he was not a pureblood, but there is no conclusive evidence of what he knew or did not know.

Further, Archibald's Theory of Increasing Organization states that magical wildness disappears after four generations of magic-users, whereas the Wizarding British definition of "pureblood" requires only two complete generations of magic-users. Therefore, although Blake Rosier likely knew that he was a bastard and that his lineage was not as pure has he had previously believed, it is not evident that he knew he was a legal halfblood.

There is no evidence that Blake Rosier was aware of the precise identity of his birth parents, or that he was a legal halfblood by the Wizarding British definition until the Black Trial. Without being able to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Blake Rosier knew that he did not have four magic-using grandparents, it would be difficult to sustain a charge of blood identity theft against him.

 _Whether Blake Rosier May Summon Justice_

As a blood noble, Blake Rosier continues to enjoy a wide variety of noble rights. Particularly, he has the absolute right to silence, and he has the right to invoke Justice for his own trial. Veritaserum cannot be used against him without his express consent, and therefore he cannot be forced to reveal when he learned of his blood status as part of an investigation.

It is unknown whether Blake Rosier may summon Justice to preside over his own trial. However, should he do so, it appears that his only sacrifice for doing so would be an inability to testify in his own defense. No adverse inference may be made by his refusal to do so, and in this case, forcing him to call on Justice in his own defense will, politically speaking, only engender sympathy and provide an explanation for his failure to do so. Blake Rosier will be unable to testify in his own defense not because of his own choice not to do so, but because he is the only known Truth-Speaker who can give himself up to be possessed for his trial.

I draw attention to two further factors which mitigate against providing the opportunity for Blake Rosier to summon Justice for the purposes of his own trial.

First, based on the _obiter_ in Justice's decision, it is clear that, if summoned and presented with a case in which a person is charged with blood identity theft, Justice will strike the blood identity theft law entirely. The Ministry's success on the Black Trial was based entirely on _locus standi_ ; as a halfblood and blood noble, Blake Rosier is in _locus standi_ to bring a challenge to the blood identity theft law.

Second, Justice's final comment in the Arcturus Rigel Black trial was that she wanted one of her _female_ Truth-Speakers, next time. The implication is that there are, in fact, other Truth-Speakers. There is no guarantee that Blake Rosier will not locate a second Truth-Speaker to summon Justice in his defense; rather, given the _obiter_ of the Black decision and the fact that Truth-Speakers will be nearly all halfbloods or new purebloods with parents who may be halfbloods, there is a strong incentive for another Truth-Speaker to step forward and volunteer for the duty with the express intent of having the law struck.

 _Whether the Ministry Should Proceed with a Charge_

Blake Rosier occupies a very different position than either Arcturus Rigel Black or Harriett Euphemia Potter. Most importantly, both Black and Potter very clearly knew that they were breaking the law in changing places to permit Potter to attend Hogwarts. Potter always knew her blood-status, and she actively chose to break the law. Blake Rosier did not.

Blake Rosier was raised as a pureblood, brought up as the Rosier Heir by two pureblood nobles. He received a pureblood noble's education and was raised among purebloods and nobles as if he were a true pureblood. There is no evidence that Blake Rosier was aware that he was not a pureblood before he went to Hogwarts. While it is reasonable to conclude that he must have learned something about his origins through his gift while at Hogwarts, it is not known to what extent he knew prior to his graduation. Unlike Black and Potter, it is very easy for Blake Rosier to argue that he did not know his blood status prior to the Black Trial, and it is likely the public will find him more sympathetic than either Black or Potter. Instead of a righteous prosecution, a trial of Blake Rosier is likely to be seen as persecution.

This is especially true now that Blake Rosier has been disowned. Blake Rosier has already lost his position in Society: as the Rosier Heir, as a full noble, and as a pureblood. He no longer has access to the vast resources of the Rosier Investment Trust, and it does not appear that he continues to be involved in the Wizarding world. He has a Muggle haircut, and wears Muggle clothes. He works in the Muggle world. He takes Muggle transportation. He is rarely seen within Wizarding Britain and has not met with any of his friends or acquaintances from Hogwarts since he was disowned. Although he appears to be developing a close connection to the Blacks, it would appear that all his previous connections have cast him off.

Blake Rosier is further unlikely to make any further connections within the Wizarding world. He does not come into contact with other witches and wizards through his everyday activities in the Muggle world. Without having attended an international school alongside other British-born halfbloods and Muggleborns, he is also unlikely to be able to integrate into their communities.

Any action against Blake Rosier, including a prosecution for blood identity theft or similar, is likely to paint the Ministry of Magic in a very poor light and will only create further sympathy for him. Therefore, while a continued warrant for surveillance may be defensible in law, I cannot recommend that any action be taken against Blake Rosier at this time.

 **CONCLUSION**

For the foregoing reasons, I recommend that the Ministry of Magic take no further action against Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier.

XXX

XXX

XXX

Penny stretched out her aching hand, wishing that she had her mother's computer and a printer. Or even a _typewriter –_ typewriters had been around for nearly a century, so why was it that she still needed to write her memoranda by hand?

She could probably spell a typewriter to work, if she focused on it, but there was no point. Everyone in the Ministry wrote by hand, as if it was the mid-eighteenth century. Some lawyers, better lawyers than her, dictated their memoranda, but Penny still preferred writing. She wasn't good at spitting out complete paragraphs and arguments; she thought through the act of writing, and she changed her mind on average four times through writing a memorandum. She often didn't know what she thought about something until she was done.

This one was easier than most. Penny felt sorry for Blake Rosier, when all was said and done. A person couldn't choose their blood-status; it just was, a result of who their parents were and the decisions their parents had made. Blake Rosier was a halfblood, and he had no choice in that, nor any ability to change that. His situation was entirely the result of the decisions of Lord and Lady Rosier, and when it had come out, they had thrown him out.

It was disgusting, and she had no doubt that Lord and Lady Rosier had paid off someone very high above her not to prosecute them. They had thrown out their own child, their own Heir, to protect their status in Wizarding Society, making _him_ pay for their decisions. Penny wished there was more she could do for him, aside from writing a very reasonable and correct memorandum of law advising against prosecuting the poor boy. Even if it would have likely been in her personal interests for Blake Rosier to be prosecuted, so that the laws could be struck.

The blue-tinged scar on her wrist itched, and she reached to scratch it absently. It was an old scar, dating back a decade, to before she had gone to Hogwarts. It had carried her through seven years, undetected, as it did a handful of others every year. Dumbledore guessed, but he never asked, and no one ever told. They were forbidden from it.

She reached for her wand and an extra roll of parchment, and with a moment of concentration, duplicated her memorandum. The first, her original, she would slide into the Minister's inbox before she left tonight.

The second, her copy, she would send north.

XXX

 _AN: This was inspired by LadyPhoenix68 who deemed it very important that the Ministry do something about Aldon. Except that Aldon is really now a nobody, and as you'll see in later Vanguard (if it wasn't already obvious), it isn't as if having gone to Hogwarts is really helpful in his newfound community, either. He doesn't have the same lived experience as Muggleborns and halfbloods, so while the poor boy is a halfblood, he just doesn't belong. And, of course, he isn't a pureblood, even if he is culturally a pureblood noble, so he doesn't belong in his old crowd, either. He's just going to be very lonely instead._

 _Thanks to mercury and Anand for the beta, and sorry to bore you with the ultra-boring law! Comments and reviews appreciated, thanks - it is rare that I use lawyer powers for fic writing, and there is some part of me that will always look at this and go "ugh, why did I do that for fun, no one reads law for fun."_


	3. there is beauty

_AN: Treat for graveExcitement and lar_a for the Rigel Black Exchange Round 1. As a warning, there are footnotes. And a massive endnote. This is for everyone who read the first 5 chapters of Vanguard and thought, "I want more real law!"_

 _Summary:_ " _Yeah, why not?" Rigel says, his grey eyes warming at the thought. "Everyone respects lawyers, because they're terrified of them, and people have to listen to what they say. Your success depends on you, and it doesn't matter what your personality is like, because if you're good people will seek you out for advice anyway."_

 _"That could be—yes," Percy replies, suddenly seeing the image in his mind's eye. "Attorneys make a good chunk of galleons, too, and as a lawyer I could really help people. The Ministry is bound by the laws of the wizarding world, as they should be, but the lawyers make those laws. I could write the laws that everyone would have to follow!"_

 _They aren't wrong. But, as Percy learns, the world is a little more complicated._

XXX

Percy has always been a little different.

He's not quite a Weasley, not quite a Gryffindor. He has the same red hair and blue eyes, the same lean and tall and gangly form of father and his brothers Ron and Bill, and he is Sorted into Gryffindor just like the rest of his family.

But that's where the similarities end. At home, he walks just a little out of step of his family. He likes his books alphabetized by subject and author on his shelf, his quills sorted by size and shape and colour, his class notes sorted by year and date and class. He likes his bed to be neatly made every morning, he likes three slices of toast with marmalade with orange juice for breakfast, and he likes to know where he'll be not just for that day, but the rest of the week. He likes order—order, and structure, and predictability _._

He's studious. He cares about his grades; more than anyone else in his year in Gryffindor, more than his brothers, more than anyone else he knows. Nothing but Outstandings will do, and the first time he gets an "Exceeds Expectations", he pulls the curtains on his four-poster and cries. It isn't so much that he's the only one who cares about his marks, because he knows that others do, but Percy is the only one who doesn't try to hide it.

Percy isn't cool. He isn't fun, the way his brothers are—he isn't outgoing, he isn't extroverted, and while he wants attention as much as any other person does, he doesn't want it to be for the same things that his brothers want. He isn't drawn to adventure, the way that Bill is, nor to danger, the way that Charlie is. He isn't a prankster like the Twins, and indeed he finds pranks to be stressful and not even the least bit fun, partly because he is always on the butt end of them. He doesn't have the charming awkward friendliness that Ron employs, nor Ginny's compelling confidence.

He isn't sure he is even brave. The Sorting Hat puts him into Gryffindor, but it's with a casual air—Percival Ignatius Weasley is a Weasley, and therefore he is a Gryffindor. Percy is red hair and Weasley and therefore he must be courageous, and yet he isn't sure he's done a single courageous thing in his entire life. Percy isn't even courageous enough to argue with the Hat, to suggest that really, maybe Ravenclaw might be better. Ravenclaw, or even Hufflepuff.

Percy is dour, he is stiff, he is the antithesis of fun. He is a rule-follower, not a rule-breaker; he is the one who interrupts and stops pranks, rather than playing them. He has nothing that he is passionate about, not like Charlie or the twins, and the very idea of heading for a thrill-fueled career fills him with anxiety.

It could be cause, or it could be effect, but Percy is also the Weasley who cares most about respect. He wants it, craves respect the way that an alcoholic craves a drink. He wants to be respected, and he loves his family dearly and he wants them to be more. He wants their name to garner the respect of the Longbottoms, if not the Potters or the Malfoys; he wants their name to mean more than poor, more than blood traitor, more than red hair and too many children.

It's that which draws him first towards the Ministry—his desire for respect and recognition, not just for himself but for his family. And when Rigel points out that perhaps the Ministry is a place where he won't be able to get ahead because of his name, because he lacks influence, and that perhaps going to the Ministry is not the path to respectability, Percy doesn't find it that hard to switch his ambitions to law.

XXX

"Law?" Mum bustles around the tiny, warm kitchen at the Burrow, cleaning up from breakfast. It's summer, and his many siblings are out playing a pick-up game of Quidditch, giving Percy a rare few minutes alone with his mother. "I wouldn't have thought that would be a path that would interest you—it's a hard one to walk."

Percy pauses, halfway through his orange juice. "Is it?"

Mum doesn't say anything for a few minutes, using her wand to cast a charm to set the dishes to washing themselves and stacking themselves on her dish rack. Percy thinks she's also using the time to sort her words.

"It's not a field anyone in our family has gone into," she says finally. "Not the Weasleys, nor the Prewetts. I wonder if you might do better at the Ministry—even if your father isn't in a very high position, he can still help you, show you the ropes."

Percy tenses. "I don't need someone to smooth my path, Mum. I—I'd rather _not_ have someone smoothing my path."

"Hmm." Mum sends him a searching look. "I'm not trying to stop you, and I don't know the first thing about law. But a Ministry job is secure, no matter what position it is, and I'm not so sure that law is. You care a lot about security, dear."

"We all start somewhere," Percy says with a slight frown, not sure how else to respond. "And I think I will do better in law than I would in the Ministry."

Mum nods and changes the subject.

XXX

He doesn't need to change his classes, not really. Hogwarts is fundamentally a magical school, and they don't offer many non-magical subjects. There is really only the International Relations class and the Wizarding Languages class, but for law Percy only needs the International Relations. The accepted training for law is a ten-month articling[1] term at the Ministry or a law firm, working under an accomplished lawyer, alongside a part-time bar admission course operated by the Inns of Court.

But in order to enroll in the course, the Professional Legal Training Course or the PLTC, Percy needs a principal: a practicing barrister and solicitor to sponsor him and agree to supervise him through his articles, teaching him along the way. The biggest firms, from the Ministry of Magic's Department of Justice to major full-service firms[2] like Walker Parkinson, Bradley Head or Marchbanks Fletcher Boot, can take two or three articling students at a time; others, small firms like Whitlock Greene or Chase Campbell Davies, maybe only one.

He's Head Boy at Hogwarts, he's been a prefect for three years, and he has top grades. It shouldn't be hard for him to get articles, and he sends out a half-dozen applications to the Ministry and to the biggest and most prestigious law firms.

Four call him into interviews.

The morning of the interviews, he stands in his dorm room, thankfully empty for the moment. It's Saturday, a Hogsmeade weekend, so all the interviews have been scheduled for today in the private back room of the Three Broomsticks. Four interviews, all of them a half-hour long, with two lawyers each.

This is Interview Weekend—the two days over which most firms consider this year's offerings, decide which students to supervise for a year and to sponsor for admission to the bar. Today is the make or break day for most who want a career in law, because if he doesn't get an offer today, there are preciously few firms that will take him on.

The firms that aren't hiring today aren't the ones that Percy wants to work for anyway. They're all small firms, mainly criminal defence, not prestigious, and Percy doesn't want to be a barrister. He wants to write the laws that everyone, including the government, needs to follow; he wants to provide advice to people trying to work through the law, not defend criminals.

The four interviews he has are good ones. The Ministry's Department of Justice has called, which he knows is the one that Mum would want him to take, if he can, and the one which Percy wants the most. First, it's a lawyer position in the Ministry where he always wanted to be; second, if it's the Ministry, he has the most chance of drafting new laws. The other three firms are all full-service, with large business client portfolios. If he gets a choice, he thinks he would pick the Ministry first, then any of the others.

He's pale in his mirror, his freckles standing out starkly on his face. His blue eyes are sharp, and his hair is neatly combed and brushed. He fingers the threadbare hems of his dress robes—the light grey makes his skin look sallow and sickly, but at least there are no patches or fraying threads. It's obviously second-hand, both from the cut of the robes and the wear, but there is little he can do about that. His family doesn't have money for new robes for any of them, and it could be worse.

He has the grades, and he has the position at Hogwarts, so he doesn't worry too much about it. This is law, and if there is any profession where his antecedents shouldn't matter, then this is it. Law is about justice, about merit; people will seek him out because he's good at his job, not his background or his personality.

With that in mind, he follows his classmates to Hogsmeade, to the Three Broomsticks. He recognizes the ones interviewing at a glance; they're the ones who are dressed in their best robes, in black and navy blue and dark grey, the ones that look too awake and too perky and too enthusiastic. Penelope Clearwater is there, as is Darren Corner, Michael Phipps, and Priscilla Carmichael, all in his year and silently spread across two booths. Two Ravenclaws, a Hufflepuff, and a Slytherin.

He glances between the two of them, but of this group, he gets along best with Penny, his ex-girlfriend, the Head Girl and a Ravenclaw prefect, so he slides into the booth she's sharing with a fidgeting Darren Corner. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

She shakes her head, her blue eyes fixed on the parchment in front of her. Her curriculum vitae, Percy realizes after a glance, with her cover letter. He thinks for a moment and decides to leave it alone.

"Where are you interviewing?" he asks Corner, Penny's fellow Ravenclaw, trying to be friendly.

Corner looks at him oddly, then glances down at Percy's robes with a slight, confused, twitch of his eyebrows. He doesn't say anything, though Percy tenses slightly at the look, and his reply is calm, quiet. "Turpin Yorke and Marchbanks Fletcher Boot," he says easily. "You?"

"The Ministry, Norris McDonald Wilson, Bradley Head and Marchbanks Fletcher Boot," Percy reels off, internally swelling with pride at his four interviews. There aren't many top-tier firms in Wizarding Britain, and Percy has landed interviews at three of them. Four interviews, too, give him better odds—he only needs to succeed in one.

Corner nods. "Large international business practices at all of them. Are you hoping to work on international trade law?"

"They're full-service, aren't they?" Percy tilts his head thoughtfully. "I was actually looking to provide more domestic services—I'm hoping for the Ministry, for legislative drafting."

Corner's eyes sharpen, and he exchanges a look with Penny, who only shakes her head very slightly. Percy frowns, feeling like he missed something, but a bell rings from the back of the room.

"That's me," Corner says quickly, rising from his seat. "Good luck, Weasley. With four interviews, I'm sure you'll do fine."

"Thank you," Percy replies, smiling slightly. "To you, too."

Without Corner, he turns to Penny, who is still studying her application materials as if she can burn the contents into her brain. He hesitates, but exes or not, he knows Penny well enough, so he goes ahead and asks. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Hmm?" She looks up at him, tucking a strand of long, blonde hair behind her ear. "No, not at all. I'm sorry, I didn't really sleep last night, and I really need to review these materials. I only have the one interview with the Ministry, so—do you mind?"

"No," Percy replies, smiling down at her. If he only had one interview, he thinks he would be stressed too. "Good luck, Penny."

His interviews are fine. The Ministry interview is, he thinks, his best one—they ask all the usual questions, about why he wants to become a lawyer, what skills he thinks he brings to the position, and questions that pry at how well he can prioritize work, how he approaches research, and how he handles conflict. The other three are, he thinks, decidedly odd.

At the interview with Norris McDonald Wilson, they ask him about his Quidditch team. He, a little flummoxed, answers the Chudley Cannons, Ron's favourite team. Percy has never loved Quidditch, not the way his brothers love it, and when they ask why he loves the Chudley Cannons over better ranking teams like the Tutshill Tornadoes or the Holyhead Harpies, he makes up something about their good sportsmanship, spirit and perseverance. The Chudley Cannons haven't won a game in almost a century.

Believe it or not, Norris McDonald Wilson goes better than Marchbanks Fletcher Boot, who ask him what books he's read recently. Percy blinks, fumbling for the title—it's a Transfiguration book, recommended to him by Professor McGonagall. When they ask him why, he only says that he likes Transfiguration, he's always been interested in the technical difficulty of it, and he struggles dragging the conversation out for the next twenty-five minutes.

The absolute worst interview, though, is Bradley Head, where they ask him about his travels. Percy has put "travel" on his list of interests, required on every curriculum vitae for law firms, but in truth that interest is more _aspirational_ than it is truth. He spins at length about his family's recent vacation to Egypt, even though he hated the sun, he hated the heat, and he hated the sand. The sand had gotten absolutely everywhere.

He comes out of it, less sure of himself than when he went in, but they all say they'll let him know in a few days and he _does_ have four chances and one offer is all he needs.

XXX

He doesn't have one offer. He receives four very polite owls a week later, all of them thanking him for the interview and advising that they had many good applicants, and they were sorry to say that they would not be extending him an offer at this time.

 _At this time_. It is a lie, stark on the page, and Percy calmly folds each of the letters, tears them into exact, half-inch squares, and throws them in the fire.

Interview Weekend was it. With Interview Weekend behind him, and four interviews with no result, Percy is lost. Worse, he is humiliated.

Darren Corner wins a spot with Marchbanks Fletcher Boot; Penny is at the Ministry. Priscilla Carmichael ends up at Turpin Yorke, while Michael Phipps accepts a position at Walker Parkinson. Outside the mere four that he saw at the Three Broomsticks, he hears about Allison McAllister, a Hufflepuff, who accepts an offer from Bradley Head, and Jason Reed, another Ravenclaw, goes to Norris McDonald Wilson. Everyone, it seems, has gotten a position—everyone except for him.

He doesn't know why. He's the top candidate—by every _objective_ measure, Percy should be the top pick. He's a prefect, he's the _Head Boy_ , his grades are a straight line of "O"s. He should have been with them, with the top of them, and he has no idea why he isn't. And, with four interviews to prepare for, Percy has missed the deadline to apply in the general Ministry recruitment. It's too late, now, to fall back on a Ministry position. He doesn't know how to explain this, to tell anyone this—he had _four_ interviews, and somehow, he failed them all.

He plays them over and over again in his mind. The Ministry is easily the worst one—it's the interview he _prepared_ for, and he has good answers to all their standard questions. He knows why he wants to be a lawyer, and he knows why he wants to work for the Ministry. He wants to write law. He's the Head Boy at Hogwarts, and while he isn't what anyone would call _well-liked_ , he performs his responsibilities well. He has a dozen examples of how he can prioritize work, and his grades show that he can research with the best of them. He has brothers, and they're all so different from him, and he has learned through many years how to manage conflict.

And it isn't enough. It isn't enough, and Percy doesn't even understand the other three interviews. They didn't even ask him anything relevant—nothing about his skills, or his strengths, or his weaknesses. Instead, they asked him about sports, his hobbies, his interests. What do those have to do with law?

He's stewing, sitting across the table from Penny as they sort through the week's disciplinary reports. The way in which he looks at the papers, skimming them before tossing them aside, must attract her notice.

"Stop," she snaps, putting her own pile of records down. "Percy, stop. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Percy mutters, tossing aside another report for his brothers. The twins were going to be the death of him. "Nothing at bloody all."

"That's a lie," she snorts. "It's the interviews, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't take a Ravenclaw to see that you didn't get an offer." Penny crosses her arms over her chest. "We might as well talk about, get it out before you take hundred points off some poor sod and throw your brothers into a month's worth of detentions. What happened?"

Percy sets the last report down, his mouth twisting in angry disappointment. "I don't know. I had four interviews. _Four_. The Ministry one went fine, but the other three… They didn't ask me anything about my skills or about being a lawyer at all. Questions about Quidditch, and books, and travel. How is that relevant? And because I was interviewing at the firms, I didn't apply in the general Ministry recruitment, and now the entirety of next year is just—a black hole. What do I do now?"

"There are a lot of firms that accept articling students outside Interview Weekend, you know," Penny says dryly. "Most people who don't get offers in the main recruitment apply to them. Some people even skip the main recruitment to apply to them."

" _Defence_ firms," Percy snaps back. "I don't want to be a criminal defence lawyer. I don't even want to be a barrister—I want to write the laws that the government needs to follow, I want to make a difference. I want to help people."

"And you think criminal defence lawyers don't help people?" Penny leans back, her eyebrows rising.

"Of course, they do," Percy replies, shaking his head. "But it's not—I would have a hard time defending criminals. How could I defend someone if I knew they had committed the crime?"

Penny's eyebrows go even higher. Even if they had dated last year and worked together as prefects and as Head Boy and Girl outside of that, they've never really discussed the details of their shared ambitions. They both wanted to be lawyers, and they shared their study notes, they shared their information on specific firms, they shared their lists of applications. But they never shared the whys—it was always enough, for both of them, that they wanted to be lawyers.

"It's an adversarial system, Percy," she says eventually, her voice silk and steel all at once. "Part of the way our legal system functions is that the state should not be able to wantonly imprison people, and the accused is entitled to a full defence. Criminal defence lawyers play a very important role."

"But I don't have to play that role." Percy looks away. "I just don't think it's for me, Penny. It's not—not really what I'm interested in."

"Would you have written laws that you vehemently disagreed with at the Ministry, then?" Penny's blue eyes are sharp, critical. "Laws that hurt people, laws that stripped people of their rights?"

"What?" Percy pauses. "No, of course not—I want to _help_ people."

"You applied to the Ministry and to the five largest, most prestigious full-service law firms in the country," Penny retorts, shaking her head in annoyance, beginning to pack up her things. "What do you think a job is at the Ministry is? What did you think you'd be doing? You don't seem to have thought this through very well."

"Wait, where do you think you're going?" Percy asks, watching as she puts away her quill and ink. "We're not done with the disciplinary reports—"

"I'll finish it in Ravenclaw Tower," she says, picking up her sheaf of reports. "I have all the Ravenclaw and Slytherin reports and I'll deal with those Houses. But while you're listening, I might as well tell you this: you need new robes for interviews. Professional legal dress is black, navy blue, and nothing lighter than charcoal until you make partner or senior counsel[3]."

Percy's jaw drops. "But this is _law!_ I can't afford new dress robes, and with my marks—"

"What, because it's law, it's perfectly meritorious?" Penny rolls her eyes, annoyed, standing up. "You probably got an interview from the Ministry because of your marks, yes, but your interviews at Norris McDonald Wilson, Marchbanks Fletcher Boot and Bradley Head were at least partly because you're from a prominent pureblood family that doesn't hold with pureblood supremacy. They already know you're smart, so they were asking you questions to see how open-minded you were and how well they could throw you in with their American business clients. The ideal answers would have been to segue into Quodpot or football, to talk about a Muggle book you'd read recently, and to talk about your excitement and enthusiasm for other cultures."

Percy stares at her, open-mouthed in mixed surprise and hurt. She sighs, looking away—whatever she says, they know each other well enough that she can read his expressions easier than most.

"I'm sorry, Percy," she says, and he knows that as annoyed as she is, she really is sorry for going off on him. "It's just that—there was a party in Ravenclaw Tower last night, and I'm a bit hungover. I'll take care of the Ravenclaws and Slytherins, so don't worry about them."

She turns to go, heading to the door leading to the rest of the castle, and after a beat Percy's tongue unfreezes.

"Wait." He takes a deep breath. "Would you write laws that hurt people? That strip people of their rights?"

She turns around, and her words are serious. "Yes. If that's what I'm asked to do, despite my advice otherwise, then yes."

"But why?"

"Because it's the role of the Wizengamot to decide the legislative priorities, just as it's the Wizengamot that votes the new law in. Because if not me, someone else would do it, and because I happen to enjoy a challenge." Penny shrugs, and Percy has the strong sense that there's something she isn't telling him. "Because I like to find ways to reason and argue about problems, and I don't need to personally agree with my own arguments to make them for other people. Does that make sense?"

"I—I see." Percy nods, as if it does make sense, but it doesn't. Not to him, not really. "Thank you. I'll see you—see you later."

XXX

It takes him a week to decide to send out applications to a new set of firms. He gets the names from Susan Bones, a Hufflepuff in Ron's year: Adams Hicks, Bones Goldstein, Provenzano & Associates, Reggi Law, Rosen & Associates. There aren't many defence firms—the vast majority of criminal defence lawyers are sole practitioners, setting up their own shingle, and there's no prestige in it. But Percy only needs a principal[4], and no one ever said that he needed to stay in criminal defence forever. He just needs to be called to the bar, and he can figure out the rest later.

He doesn't really want to be applying to the criminal defence firms. They pay a third of what the major law firms or the Ministry pays, and it's nothing that he can show off to anyone, but he can't bear to admit that he tried something and failed. So, he pivots, spends some time writing short, succinct cover letters about the importance of criminal defence lawyers for the proper functioning of the legal system, and sends them off.

No one in his family is a lawyer, so he can always pretend like these firms are every bit as prestigious as the ones that rejected him. And Bones Goldstein does occupy a certain cachet—about third of the Bones are eventually appointed to the bench[5], some of whom are certainly from the defence. It's only ten years of practice before he can be considered for the bench, if he doesn't manage to switch into another, better firm before then.

He gets only one interview, which Susan says is quite normal, even impressive—criminal defence, she says, traditionally picks their students from OWL year, and takes them on for two summers before agreeing to articles.

They're pickier, these firms, which doesn't make any sense to Percy. They're small firms, only a handful of lawyers each, and the amount they pay their students is pitiful. They have almost no profile outside the legal profession. But one interview is all he needs, because one offer is all he needs, and he throws himself into studying and preparing for this _one_ interview.

He learns the lines that are expected. Why does he want to work criminal defence? Because of what Penny said, that the adversarial system only works if the accused has a full and complete defence, and that means the best lawyers. He finds a reason why he came to law late, because he doesn't have any role models in his life to lead him on this path, and he makes sure to replace the word "criminal" in his vocabulary with "accused". It's good, and he hopes that between his lines and his background, it's good enough for Bones Goldstein to take him on.

The morning of this interview, he charms his dress robes black. It's still obviously an older robe, not cut in the most modern fashion, but it's better than in the first round. He has a permission slip to leave Hogwarts and miss his classes for the afternoon, and he packs his preparation materials into a briefcase, stiffens his spine, and heads out of the castle to the front gates.

Bones Goldstein is in an old building, several streets off Diagon Alley. The alley it's on is a dead end, so small that it doesn't even have a name, and he takes three wrong turns before he finds it: a tall, three-storey, redbrick building, more like a home than an office. It looks completely non-descript, one building in a residential area with a funeral home next door. Only a small gold plaque at the entrance, reading _Bones Goldstein Barristers_ in black ink, sets the building apart from the others.

Percy hesitates for a moment, examining the ivy climbing the walls, the brightly lit windows, before he sighs and climbs the steps. Eight steps up to the landing, and he stands before a heavy, oversized door painted in black. A plain gold ring hangs in the centre, on a burnished golden backing, and Percy lifts it and drops it with a bang.

"Come on in," a warm, matronly voice says from somewhere above his head, and there's a soft buzz as the door unlocks. Percy walks into a worn reception room—there are only four seats in front of the reception desk, where a woman with iron-grey hair curled in rings is sorting correspondence. There are a dozen quills on the desk, some half of them broken and spilling ink on spare pieces of parchment. She glances at him, and nods to the faded chairs in the reception. "Percival Weasley, right? Have a seat. I'll call Lizzie." She reaches over and, without a wand, hits one of the squares of paper lining the wall beside her. Each of them has a rune and a name on it, clearly some kind of alert spell.

Percy sits, and waits, and he examines the room around him. It's not what he pictures when he thinks of an office—there are some aspects that are like an office, like the desk with the receptionist, but the rest of it looks homey, too homey to be a legal office. The fabric of the chair is shiny from how many people have sat in them, and they're smaller than comfortable. He feels pinched, too tall and gangly for this space, though there's nothing about this space that says he should feel like that. Maybe it's that he is looking for elegance, he is looking for the beauty that comes with power and prestige, and instead everything is clearly designed to put this firm's clients at ease.

"Send him up," a woman replies, the speaking spell appearing in the air beside the receptionist. She looks up, smiles, hands him a keychain with the scales of justice and gestures to a wooden door set just before her desk.

"You heard her. Go on up, dear—first floor, she'll meet you. Return the token when you come back; it just lets you past the usual wards."

Percy nods, thanking her, and heads upstairs.

The stairs are wood, covered in carpet that was once red, but was now a faded pink. The barristers are dark, too smooth from years of use, and the few cracks or blemishes have been worn away into rivers and streams. The walls are lined with portraits, the past and present partners of Bones Goldstein, who watch him in silent consideration or interest as he treads upstairs.

On the landing, he's met by a petite woman of middle age. Her hair is darker than he suspects it should be, cut short and combed over to sweep dramatically to the left while leaving her face clear. Her eyebrows are plucked to thin, sharp arches, and her brown eyes are lined in thick black kohl. Her lips are painted red, her nails long, filed, and dark blue.

Elizabeth Bones, Percy recalls. Lady Amelia Bones' younger sister, one who hasn't been yet appointed to the bench—the less successful one. But she carries herself with confidence, like a woman who knows perfectly well who she is and what she wants. She's somebody so completely outside of his experience, and Percy is, for a moment, taken aback.

Grown women in his life do not look like this. They look like his mother, no-nonsense and business-like as they take care of their families, or they look like Professor McGonagall, who is elderly and stern and professional. They don't wear makeup, they put their hair up and out of the way and roll up their sleeves while they get things done. Women who care about their appearance, like this woman so clearly does, are what Percy has learned to associate with empty-headed ninnies who don't think much beyond boys and clothes and makeup. Women who look like this giggle and preen, they don't lead the way to their pristine corner offices with the faint clicking of their sharp, stiletto heels, their pressed navy-blue robes swinging.

"Have a seat," she says, opening a cabinet to one side and pulling out a bottle and two glasses. "Scotch?"

"No, thank you," Percy replies primly, settling into the chair across from the desk. The woman shrugs, pours herself a finger, and sits down to examine him with interest.

Percy feels like a bug pinned on card. She doesn't say anything at first, just watching him and examining him: his bright red hair, his freckles dark on his pale skin, his round, horn-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. Her eyes linger for a moment on his robes, and Percy sees that she notices the cut, the worn edges on his hems, the fact that it's about two inches too short for him. He tenses for a moment, but she doesn't comment on it.

"So," she drawls, raising her glass for a sip. "Why do you want to article at Bones Goldstein?"

"Bones Goldstein is a leading criminal defence firm," Percy starts, reeling off his carefully prepared and memorized answer. "I'm interested in exploring a career in criminal defence, and Bones Goldstein would be an ideal place for me to learn the basics. Criminal defence is appealing to me because of the critical role that criminal defence plays in our legal system. It is important that the government have checks on its power, and criminal defence work is one of those key checks—"

"Oh, cut the shit, Weasley." The woman rolls her eyes, leaning back in her chair. "I don't need a regurgitated oral dissertation on how great we are. Lawyers talk. I know you're here because you got rejected from the Ministry and five of the top corporate-commercial firms in the country, and I know that you don't have a passion for criminal defence. Normally, I'd take one look at someone like you and throw your application in the rejection pile. You don't give a shit about criminal defence work, because if you did, you'd have been here two years ago. But for some reason, you're here. Top grades, Head Boy. A Weasley—not noble, but Sacred Twenty-Eight. You can walk into any mid-level job at the Ministry, and even if there's not much room for advancement, that's still more than most can get. But you're here, at a criminal defence firm. Why?"

Percy gapes for a moment, trying to find an answer. This isn't in the plans—he has the background, he has the grades, he's done everything right. He is supposed to have a job at one of the big firms or with the Ministry, but instead, he is here.

"Because I want to help people," he tries again, but she shakes her head.

"If you wanted to help people, you'd become a Healer," Bones says diffidently, taking another sip of scotch. "But you're here, in a small criminal defence firm. I want to know why, and try the truth, this time."

Percy falls silent, glaring at this witch who is too beautiful to be smart, who cares too much about how she looks to be competent. Her hands are clasped around her glass, her elbows are resting on the table, and her eyes bore into him, intrigued, like he's a puzzle that she's trying to solve.

"Because I want to be respected," he spills out, annoyed, his gaze fixed on her well-manicured nails. It wasn't supposed to go like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this. "Because I want people to listen to me. Because I want to earn money, and I want my family to be respected. I want the Weasley name to have the same respect as the Bones, or to mean something more than being poor and having too many children and red hair. Because I want to go into a job where I can advance based on my merit, and not the influence that my family doesn't wield."

He takes a deep breath, horrified at himself—he can't believe he lost control so easily, especially to this woman who is too well put together, with too much makeup and too much prepossession. But this interview is clearly going badly already anyway, and he has nothing to lose. His words, when he continues, are hard. "And I _do_ want to hold the government in check, I want to write the laws that the government needs to follow. I _do_ want to help people. I just didn't think I'd be doing it _here_."

The woman stares at him, pausing in with the glass halfway to her lips, and interest flits across her face. "Huh. Now we're getting somewhere. So—what do you do for fun?"

"Why does everyone insist on asking these questions?" Percy snaps, his hands flying sharply in the air. "What does it matter what I do for fun? I'm the Head Boy, I'm a _Gryffindor_ prefect, I have five brothers and a sister—what do you think I do for fun? I fight off my brothers from wrecking my organizational schemes and getting into my things, I stop students from killing themselves and each other by accident, and then I do my homework. I don't have much time for other things."

"Maybe you should find something." The woman smiles, setting her glass down. "And we ask because, with your grades and record, we know that you can do the job. We just want to know whether we'll want to kill you or not while you do it."

XXX

Percy is sure that he failed the interview—this one worse than the rest. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bones had him marked as a liar within the first five minutes, and the rest of the interview is just barb after barb. She wrings out of him that he loves his family, but that they often drive him up the wall; that he hasn't read for pleasure in more than three years; that he desperately wants recognition and that even becoming Head Boy isn't enough. He's sure that none of it spells an articling position for him, and yet…

Three weeks later, Elizabeth Bones writes him with a formal offer for articles, and their articling agreement is signed, sealed and delivered shortly afterwards. It's not the job that he wanted, but it's a job, and it's an articling principal, and he never has to admit to his family that this wasn't in the plans. Bones Goldstein is a good firm, if defence-side, and he just tells his family that he's at a major firm specializing in Ministry cases.

It's true, after a fashion. Criminal defence is a specialization in Ministry cases, and if his family takes it to mean something else, then that is their assumption.

He signs up for the PLTC, his articling agreement in hand, and the week after his graduation from Hogwarts he goes to the Inns of Court and picks up eight massive volumes of materials which cost too much and for which his firm pays. PLTC is for the most part self-studied, though there are eight mandatory lectures to attend, one per subject, and eight exams to pass. He runs into Penny outside the Inns of Court, stacking her books.

"You got articles, then?" Penny says, a small frown on her face as she charms the books to fit into a bag that she brought for that explicit purpose. "Congratulations."

"Bones Goldstein." Percy smiles, pretending to more enthusiasm than he actually feels. A firm is a firm, and it's just one year.

"Good firm." Penny nods, a little absent-minded, as she just manages to shove the last volume into her bag. "When do you start?"

"Monday," Percy says. Most of the year's articled students begin at the same time, in order to meet the ten-month requirement before the May Call to the Bar[6] next year. The timelines are tight enough, and it's better to start early in case something comes up. "You?"

"Same." She swings her bag over her shoulder. "I'll see you at PLTC, then."

"See you."

He has a new wardrobe—a graduation gift from his parents, and he carefully ensures that every single one is a shade of black, navy-blue, or charcoal-grey. His mother despairs at his lack of colour, suggesting several robes in a lighter blue that she says will bring out his eyes, but he steadfastly refuses. He can't wear lighter colours for work, and he has precious few enough robes that he can't afford the luxury of robes that he cannot wear to work.

It's in a brand new, charcoal-grey robe that he goes to Bones Goldstein on his first day and meets Audrey Smith.

She's in the articling students' office: a small room at the back of the second floor. A wall of books lines the back wall, with two desks spaced at opposite sides of the room. There's just enough room that they won't fall into each other when they lean back in their desk chairs, but little more than that. Her brown hair is layered to frame her round face, with a fringe over her forehead. She has light freckles dusting her pert nose, and her robes are cut to highlight soft, round curves. She's busy setting up a new set of Muggle-style pens and pads of paper at her station, alongside a few quills and precious little parchment.

"You must be the other student," she says, turning to him, letting a warm smile come across her face and holding out a hand. Her accent is British, but Percy doesn't recognize her. "My name is Audrey—Audrey Smith. I guess we'll be getting cozy for the next ten months."

"Percy Weasley," Percy replies slowly, taking her hand and trying to place her. He should know everyone at Hogwarts, and he doesn't recognize her. "Er—"

"I went to Ilvermorny in America," Audrey explains with a casual wave of her hand. "I'm a halfblood."

Percy pauses, blinking. "Oh."

"That going to be a problem for you?" She's still smiling, and her voice is still warm and light, but there's a challenge in her hazel eyes.

"No, not at all," Percy says quickly, and it isn't a problem. He is just taken aback because he hasn't met many halfbloods before. Rigel Black once brought his halfblood cousin, Harry Potter, over to the Burrow, but she's only one person. He didn't think that most people who were educated abroad returned to Britain. "So—er, first day?"

"In a way," she says, relaxing and turning back to her desk. "First day of articles, but I've been here the last two summers. Richard asked that I show you the ropes of set-date court, client interviews, and so on."

"Richard?" Percy frowns.

"Richard Goldstein?" Audrey raises an eyebrow at him. "You should learn the names of the partners in the firm, at least."

"Of course, I've learned the names of the partners," Percy retorts, shaking his head. "I was simply curious that you were on first name terms?"

Audrey tilts her head up—Percy is a good eight inches taller than she is, at least, and while she's dressed in neat, navy-blue robes, he can see that she's kicked her heels off and that they're lying in a jumble beside her desk. "Why, is that weird? Seems pretty normal to me."

"I would have thought that, in the legal profession, we required more formality," Percy says stiffly, trying to put his feelings into words. The woman doesn't seem to see anything wrong with using first names, even to her superiors, and it all strikes him as being rather strange, even uncomfortable.

She shrugs. "Well, I mean—we'll be getting very familiar over the next ten months. You'll see. Anyway, we can't meet clients in our office because of confidentiality, so I'm officially calling this a no-shoes zone. My heels are going to kill me. Want to go for an office tour?"

Percy hesitates, then he sets down his own briefcase holding all the things he wanted to have near him at the office. "Yes, why not?"

Audrey shows him first around the second floor first, which, aside from the articling students' office, boasts a large sitting area with two sofas and an armchair. The walls are lined with more books, and the room has the slightly stale air of being unused—or, at least, not used for its apparent purpose. He spots a pile of blankets piled at the end of one sofa and has the strong impression that this is a room that lawyers might sleep in after a long night.

"The couches aren't bad for one night," Audrey confirms for him. "But the crick they'll give in your neck is killer."

There's also a bathroom attached to the room, one which has a shower that looks like it hasn't been used or cleaned in months. Audrey shows it to him with a perfunctory air and pretends not to see when Percy wrinkles his nose and discreetly casts a cleaning spell.

There is also a large boardroom, dominated by a huge, battered wooden table stacked with volume after volume of books and strewn with pads of blue-lined, yellow paper. The chairs around the boardroom are mismatched, but there are diagrams and charts all over the place. Percy thinks he might recognize several magical theory textbooks specializing in defensive magic. In the centre of the mess, a man in black dress robes with a heavy frown on his face is flipping through page after page of notes.

"Another self-defence case, Steve?" Audrey asks, looking around the room.

"Audrey," the man replies, looking up to reveal a broad, hooked nose, narrow chin and dark eyes. "Welcome back. You finished the Defense Mastery, right?"

"Sure did," Audrey replies easily, and Percy shoots her a puzzled look. "Oh, Steve, this is Percy, the other student for the year. I'm showing him around."

"Lizzie's curiosity?" The lawyer looks at Percy for a moment, thoughtful, then holds out his hand to shake. "Welcome to Bones Goldstein. Stefan Basciano, at your service. Audrey, when you're done showing him around, come back here, would you? I want to pick your brain on the theory of this case."

"Will do," Audrey says, turning around and ushering Percy out of the boardroom and shutting the door behind her. "The boardroom is an internal meeting room only, so every time someone is on a major case, they kind of take it over for the space. Come on, let's go downstairs. You know Lizzie already, of course, but everyone else."

"Defense Mastery?" Percy asks, looking down at the woman walking beside him in heels. Even in heels, she's half a foot shorter than him. "I thought you just graduated?"

"The American schools offer wider programs." Audrey shrugs, leading the way to the front stairwell. "Most of us finish with a specialization or Mastery of some kind, mine just happens to be in Defense. Because of Steve, actually—he's our self-defence specialist, and he recommended I get it. You pick up more in self-defence and voluntariness cases when you have a deeper understanding of the magic behind it."

The first floor is devoted to the lawyers and their offices. Bones Goldstein is a small firm, with only five lawyers. Aside from the partners, Elizabeth Bones and Richard Goldstein, there are three associates. Stefan, Percy has already met upstairs, but he waves hello to a woman with almost white-blond hair and a round face named Katherine Wright, who waves at him distractedly from her Floo call, and Audrey explains that the third associate, Bertrand Belanger, is running set date court for their clients this morning.

"That'll become our responsibility," Audrey says. "Don't worry, it's easy. Mostly it's yelling at the Ministry that they haven't provided us with adequate disclosure, pointing out problems or obvious holes in their cases, and so on. It's not all murder trials, mostly it's negotiating with the Ministry on plea bargains and so on."

On the ground floor, Percy is shown to the three client meeting rooms, small and clean and private, and the kitchen, and the filing room. Audrey introduces him to Martha, their long-serving and long-suffering receptionist and law clerk and he is told in the strictest of terms to stay on her good side. Martha, he is advised, can do a lot to make his life easier or harder, beginning with keeping track of his clients and ending with losing his files.

"And remember," Audrey says, her face turning serious in the kitchen, as she turns and begins setting up a complicated charm to brew coffee. "Martha is also the first line of defense if you get in trouble down here. This is never an easy conversation, not least because saying that our clients might be dangerous feeds into a lot of stereotypes about poverty. But we do see a lot of people on their worst days imaginable, and you should always be taking basic precautions. When you get into a client room with a client, always seat yourself closer to the door. If you ever feel like you're in danger, get out and get past the line made by Martha's desk against the wall, or into either of the stairwells—you need to be carrying a ward-key to get past them. Get Steve or Bert, or me. We all have Defense Masteries, so we can handle ourselves, and Lizzie is mean with a wand."

"I'll keep that in mind," Percy replies, watching her pale wand move in a spell he hasn't seen before. "Though I _do_ have a Defense NEWT. I scored Outstanding."

Audrey shrugs. "Just a precaution. Come on, let's get our coffees and head upstairs to see what assignments the lawyers have given us to start on."

Over the next few weeks, Percy sets himself to working and learning. Audrey, having been there for two summers already, has seniority, but she's surprisingly amenable to helping him if he needs it and checks in on him a couple times a day. She's chatty, always full of commentary about the lawyers, about something someone said at court, about something she overheard on the streets, but when she focuses on work she proves herself to be clever and efficient. She takes the time to show him around the Great Library in the Inns of Court, the law library that should hold the answers if the small library at Bones Goldstein doesn't have it, and to walk him through his first appearances at set date court.

Set date court is exactly what it sounds like and is simultaneously both necessary and a massive waste of time. Once an accused is charged with a crime, the Ministry has the obligation to provide disclosure to the defense or a copy of all the evidence that they intend to rely on for trial. It is supposed to include Auror case notes, photos, witness statements, the complete case against the accused, and it rarely does. Three-quarters of the time, the first set of disclosure provided doesn't meet the legal requirements; about a third of those times, there just isn't enough evidence to make out the offence at all. Set date court is the ground for negotiations, where defence counsel[7] and the prosecution point out the weaknesses in each others' cases. Charges can be withdrawn in set date court if defence counsel finds enough holes in the evidence, or they may come to a plea bargain. Only if the prosecution and defence agree that there can be no other terms will the matter be set down for a trial.

On one morning alone, he watches as Audrey has two sets of charges dismissed, bargains down another three files, and sets only one down for trial. For one set of charges, she calmly turns to the judge, and notes that the prosecution has had three appearances and nine weeks to produce the evidence supporting the charge, then says that the fact that they have failed to do so leads to logical conclusion that it doesn't exist. The judge only glares at the prosecution, who hastily withdraws the charge then and there.

If they come to a plea bargain, the charge gets sent for a new date, and they go back to their client and talk them through the advantages and disadvantages of the new charges and of a plea. Most of their clients do plead guilty to lesser charges, and Percy is given responsibility for running the easiest of these guilty pleas the next week.

Set date court is a gross waste of time because it inevitably lasts all day. The prosecutors can work on a rotation, calling the list of matters in blocks that are convenient for them and for their cases, but defence counsel are stuck there for most of the day, just sitting and waiting for their cases to be called.

The clients aren't at all what Percy expected. For the most part, they don't seem dangerous—they seem completely normal.

There's the youth offender caught pickpocketing, who they're not sure is actually old enough to be charged at all because, for all that he says he's fifteen, he still looks twelve. But when they press him on his age, he insists he's fifteen. He insists up and down that he is fifteen years old, and even when they subtly hint that the age of responsibility is thirteen and he cannot be legally held responsible for something he does when he is under the age of thirteen, he only glares at them and says that he's fifteen and he _isn't_ lying. But it's his first offence and he's an orphan without any formal schooling, so they get him off on a conditional discharge[8] and off he jaunts back out onto the streets.

There's the man who lost his temper and threw a glass of water on someone in the Leaky Cauldron when the wrong person is watching. At first, Percy thought he had literally thrown a full glass of water at someone, but it turns out that _assault with a weapon, to wit: water_ just means that he threw the water from a glass onto the complainant's face. The complainant happened to be a Ministry official.

There's even a young woman charged with filing a false sexual assault report. That one hurts—that is one where Audrey stomps back up to the second floor, locks herself in the bathroom and cries while Percy talks the woman through the process for a guilty plea. The case against her is a solid one, and the plea deal is good, and the woman just nods and agrees with an empty look in her eyes.

"You know she's lying, right?" Audrey asks later, sliding back into the seat behind Percy, red-eyed. "About the rape."

Percy turns around, to look at his officemate and fellow student, sometimes his friend. Her eyes are rimmed in red, and she'll pulling out a palette of makeup already. "She wants to plead guilty, Audrey."

"But you know that she's lying. The rape happened. She reported it. Then, something happened—someone threatened her, I don't know—so she went to withdraw her report. The Aurors got mad and charged her." Audrey sniffs. "And now she's more afraid of whatever it is on the other side than she is of a criminal conviction. But she was raped."

Percy pauses, looking her over, then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a worn handkerchief and offers it to her. "Just in case your makeup comes off again."

She nods and takes it, turning back around and getting back to work.

There is rather a lot of work. Percy misses dinner with his family more often than he makes it, and the few times that he does make it, he just eats in silence, packs up a box, and takes it back to the office for Audrey. He lives more at the office than he does at home; his parents think he's overworking, while his brothers are convinced that he's making up work to stay at the office. None of them understand that since Percy spends three days a week stranded in set date court and guilty pleas, he needs every day he can get and most evenings to prepare his cases for next week and to complete the endless research memoranda that the lawyers assign him.

It's traditional for articling students to work hard. As hard as Percy works, Audrey works harder—she doesn't go home three times a week to see her family. She's slept in the office at least twice since they started, if Percy has it right, and she never leaves before ten at night. She's always back by at eight the next morning, doing last minute prep for another day in court.

Percy knows because he's there with her, most days and nights. They trade off brewing the coffee and bringing each other mugs, and even if they spent hours in focused, concentrated silence, it becomes a comfortable one.

XXX

The first time they go to PLTC, it is Friday and Audrey is stressed. Her robes are too clean, too pressed, a sharp black and she's put on a little more eyeliner than she does normally. Percy notices, but he doesn't ask about it, even as she pulls on a pair of three-and-a-half inch heels that he knows she hates. Her hair is twisted in a neat bun at the base of her neck, her fringe is fluffed up and curled, and her lips are cherry red. She's learned from Lizzie how to turn beauty into a weapon, which is exactly what Percy has figured out by now.

Lizzie Bones likes to look good, but a large part of it is a trick. Men underestimate women who are beautiful, and lawyers are no exception. Percy is no exception—his first interview with Lizzie Bones ended with him spilling more truth than he had ever imagined he would in any formal situation, and somehow it had gone better for him than anywhere else. Whatever else one said about Bones Goldstein, after four nearly eighty-hour weeks, he feels more at home there than he has possibly anywhere else. They see each other at their best, and at their worst, and everywhere in-between. He sees Audrey flushed with success, and or fresh off an angry burst of tears, and just once, when she is feeling particularly murderous, he watches as she very calmly goes into the boardroom, conjures a flock of birds, and plays target practice for an hour with her wand.

The PLTC takes place in the bowels of the Inns of Court, in small, bowl-shaped room with a simple wooden podium at the front. The desks are small, with wooden tables that slide up from the side and over their laps. The air is thick with dust, and the moment Percy walks in, he can see that the room is already divided into two groups.

"Audrey!" a dark-haired, brown-skinned woman chirps, waving her over. "Good to see you! How is Bones Goldstein?"

"Busy." Audrey sighs, visibly relaxing as she walks over to join her friend. "I must have docketed three hundred hours in the last month. Oh, this is Percy, the other student at my firm. Percy, Nadia Zaman, from Adams Hicks, and Robert McCormick, from Rosen & Associates."

"Pleased to meet you," Percy says, and he means it. From the way that Audrey greets them, and the fact that he doesn't recognize them, he assumes that they're her friends from America—fellow halfbloods or Muggleborns, not allowed to school at Hogwarts.

Both of them look at him curiously, but they're friendly enough, and Percy leans against a nearby desk listening to them catch up. It's mostly talk about their work, about how many hours they've each done in the last month, about the sheer dullness of the first unit of their bar admission course.

Penny walks in, and Percy catches her eye and tries to wave her over. She sees him, smiles slightly, but hesitates before shaking her head and walking over to join the other cluster of students. Percy recognizes Darren Corner, Michael Phipps, Allison McAllister, Jason Reed, Priscilla Carmichael—his fellow classmates from Hogwarts, at the Ministry and the big firms to which he had originally applied.

He pauses, but he hasn't seen any of them for over a month. Most of them aren't in the criminal courts, not even Penny, and he should catch up with them. He taps Audrey on the arm, gesturing to the other group. "I'm going to say hello to my old classmates. I'll be back in a few minutes."

She doesn't reply, but she waves her hand in acknowledgement, and he walks over to the desk that Penny has chosen, in the second row beside Corner.

"Penny," he says. "How have you been?"

She shrugs, the bags under her eyes obvious. "Busy. And you?"

"Busy." Percy pauses. "I haven't seen you in criminal court yet?"

"The Ministry has a rotation system for their articled students, so I started in the corporate division." Penny shakes her head. "It's been all procurement and transfer payment agreements for me. Three months here, then I move into legislative drafting for a month, then three months in civil litigation and only prosecutions at the end."

"I see." Percy frowns, mildly jealous. It sounds like a well-rounded program—except for the PLTC, all Percy will learn from a practical perspective is criminal law. There will be transferable skills, because Percy will likely have more courtroom experience than anyone on this side of the room, but he won't have the wide range of contract, advice, and drafting experience that Penny will get.

The door to the room bangs open, and a man in black robes walks in. "Sit down, everyone. We only have three hours for me to teach the lot of you about professional responsibility, and I assume you've all had the chance to read the materials so that we can make the most of it. So, let's get to it: you'll all fuck up. Now, when you fuck up, what are you going to do?"

Percy sighs, sits down in the seat beside Penny, and pulls out a yellow legal pad and a Muggle pen. Four weeks in, Audrey has already converted him to them—they're less messy, he doesn't need to take breaks to dip his quill in ink, and he writes at least twice as fast with them as he ever did with a quill. The office even stocks them, and no one seems to mind that he swipes them.

The lecture is interesting enough, though it reiterates the same points that were in their incredibly dull reading materials. Percy has been pacing himself, having marked milestones to reach every weekend, while Audrey crammed them within the last week. Penny, Percy would bet, probably read a bit every evening before she went to bed, then finished off the entire volume the night before.

He takes notes, propping his foot up on the chair in front of him and setting the legal pad against his knee. By now, he doesn't need to think about the process of flipping page, after page, after page—the days of pinning down a piece of parchment with one hand while scrawling with the other are over. He doesn't even need the tiny excuse for a desk at his side, which is far too small for either his notepad or a scroll of parchment. The things are useless.

After the lecture, as they're packing up, Penny turns to him. "We're going for drinks, at the Leaky Cauldron. Do you want to come with?"

"Yes—why don't I invite the others?" Percy nods towards the three students sitting on the other side of the room.

She hesitates. "Three more might be…"

"We're a large enough group, three people aren't going to make a difference," Percy points out, raising a hand to motion the other three over. "We're all going through the same experience, articling, and in the same class—"

"I don't think that's a good idea, Weasley," Corner cuts in, glancing at the other three students across the room. "We all went to Hogwarts, and I mean—we can catch up, but they won't be able to relate, you know?"

"That's hardly something they could control," Percy snaps, his eyes shifting over to glare at Corner.

Corner shakes his head. "It's not a good idea, Weasley. We wouldn't have anything in common—"

"Like law?"

"Well, criminal law is really different," Corner says, and it sounds pathetic to Percy's ears. "Look, we're going to the Leaky—you can come if you want, but the others… I don't know how well the others would take to them. Penny, you coming?"

"Yes, just give me a moment." Penny glances over at Percy but grabs his forearm to keep him from leaving. She smiles as Percy's former classmates walk out of the room, then leans over to whisper in his ear. "You should really think about coming—if you want to switch out of criminal law later, they're the connections you'd need. See you later."

She disappears from the room, swinging her bag over her shoulder, while Percy stares after her.

"What was that about?" Audrey asks, touching him on the arm. "We're heading for drinks in Muggle London, do you want to come?"

"Yes, er—" Percy stops and takes a deep breath, wondering if maybe, for the first time ever, his Gryffindor Sorting might finally make sense. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, as his brothers might say. "The other articling students are going for a drink in the Leaky Cauldron—should we join them?"

"Nah," Audrey replies, with a sad sort of grimace. "We know we're not welcome, and criminal defence has always been a bit of an outsider. We're dirty, and we're not afraid to get dirty, either. Come on, Perce, let us show you some of Muggle London."

Percy hesitates for a long moment, looking after his former classmates, some of whom he might have even called his friends. Penny was his friend. And then he looks towards the three students that are still in the room: Audrey, who is looking up at him with an expression of concern and resignation, all at once, and the slightly suspicious looks of her two friends.

Sometimes, crossroads don't look like crossroads. Sometimes, they're just moments. And in that moment, Percy feels more comfortable with Audrey and her friends than he does trying to chase after the people he once knew in school, the ones that, seven years later, he still calls by surname.

"I don't have anything to wear in the Muggle world," he says, trying for levity. "You know, pureblood and all that."

"I'm sure Rob can find something in his closet that'll fit." Audrey smiles, glancing at her friend, who looks to be a good three inches shorter than Percy and possibly thirty pounds heavier. "Or, at least—we're mages, we'll witch them to make them fit. It'll work, don't worry about it."

Muggle beer is strange, but good, Percy decides several hours and several pints later. He particularly likes Guinness, likes the bitter and rich aftertaste that it leaves on his tongue, and instead of risking the Apparition home to the Burrow in his inebriated state, Audrey lets him crash on her sofa.

He returns the favour by waking her up at nine in the morning the next day and reminding her that they both have at least two research memos that need to be done by Monday morning.

XXX

Month pass. Percy's life falls into a brutal, never-ending rhythm: court, two to three days a week, followed by preparation for another day. Disclosure reviews, where he parses from the spaces between the lines what the Ministry is missing, and interviews with sobbing and upset clients, and research for more complicated cases for the lawyers. He has file reviews once per week with Lizzie, who spends two hours every Friday picking through his cases with a fine-toothed comb. When he misses things, she lets him know it with a mix of kindness and hard-hitting mockery, and he learns from them as much from her as he does just from being in court, watching the lawyers there negotiate with the prosecution and argue before the judge. He sees and admires the calm, firm demeanour in which the Law Lords govern their courtrooms.

His cases become more and more complicated, and Lizzie starts sending him to bail court. Mere assault charges become more sexual assault or assault with a weapon, and theft under becomes theft over[9] and fraud. He begins helping Lizzie, or Richard, or Steve or Bert or Kate on their more complex cases, there to turn pages of disclosure to a neatly highlighted paragraph, to have whispered conferences about precedent, and to keep their clients calm through one of the most terrifying experiences of their lives.

He comes to a deeper understanding of their clients. Life isn't black and white; for so many people, it isn't a question of following the right path or not. Some people seem to be doomed from the beginning—there are the orphan children, who grow up on the streets stealing for their survival, because Wizarding Britain does not have a formal fostering system. The Muggle one does, but by the time they come to Bones Goldstein with their first charges at thirteen or fourteen, it is often too little and too late. Others make a mistake, one night with too much to drink, and Percy as the former Head Boy is very familiar with drunken stupidity. The difference is, at Hogwarts, they got off with a scolding, points off, and detention; in the real world, they get criminal charges. Still others commit a crime, admit it and have no regrets, but there's always a reason.

Often those reasons are very good ones.

Geoffrey Baker keeps getting charged with assault and assault with a weapon. Every time, he admits it. Every time, it's against the same person: his brother-in-law. And every time, it's because his brother-in-law smacks his sister around and the Aurors, seeing it as word against word, never lay charges. So Geoffrey takes matters into his own hands, and while he's certainly guilty of every charge he has been given, no one in the Ministry seems to have worked out that charging the brother-in-law might solve the problem better. Instead, Geoffrey Baker gets a reputation for being a bruiser who belongs behind bars, though he's really more of a loving and frustrated brother with a temper and poor impulse control.

There is always a reason, and the lines between guilty and innocent blur. The words that Penny told him months ago, and that he memorized for his interview, begin ringing more true than ever: this is an adversarial system, and the powers of the government must be kept in check by a strong defence bar.

The prosecution has too much power. The prosecution has the manpower, they have a hundred Aurors and law clerks at their disposal, and politically law and order has always flown better than the rights of the accused. But Aurors and the prosecution are human like any other, and they make just as many mistakes as anyone else.

All the accused have is defence counsel: underpaid, considering the sheer number of hours he works, and overworked. But it's good work, and it's worthwhile work, and Percy is almost surprised to find that he enjoys it very much indeed.

His clients listen to him. They respect him and trust him. They even like him, just as his coworkers do, and Percy starts getting the feeling that maybe he isn't quite as dour, quite as stiff or quite as boring as his family has always made him out to be. The defence bar welcomes him, and he joins Audrey and her friends at the pub in Muggle London once a week. He even buys his own Muggle clothes for these outings—t-shirts, zip-up sweatshirts, and jeans. He develops a taste for jazz and dark beer, and the tiny articling student office becomes part home, part work, and part safe haven.

He forgets what he told his family about his work. It isn't as though they ask him much about the details of his job anyway, other than to say that because Percy is doing it, that it must be very boring indeed, probably something about the thickness of cauldron bottoms or something else similarly dull. Percy only points out that regulations on cauldron bottoms are critical for consumer safety and doesn't bother to respond further. He doesn't really have the energy to dive into a complex discussion about his work, and three quarters of his mind is always spinning on his cases, searching for the elusive reasonable doubt. No one notices, because a good thing about having so many siblings is that they talk over him.

All of which makes the eventual explosion more memorable.

"Percy," his dad says slowly over dinner, late in November. It's shepherd's pie, and he's mostly thinking about a research memo on duress that he needs to get done. He's in court tomorrow morning, so he needs to make serious headway on it tonight, or he'll be sleeping at the office tomorrow. And he still needs to finish his readings for civil procedure before the PLTC lecture on Friday, too.

"Yes?"

"I saw you at court today." Dad's eyebrows are furrowed over his round glasses.

"Yes." Percy was in bail court all morning, getting three of their firm's clients off with sureties or on their own recognizance[10], then it was client meetings all afternoon. But Dad sounds concerned, so he looks up from his pie. "I'm an articled student, Dad. I do often go to court."

"You were in bail court," his dad replies. "Getting people out of prison pending trial."

"Yes," Percy says, puzzled, before the rest of his brain catches up with his mouth. His mother looks aghast, his brothers surprised. "Er, well, yes."

"You were getting _criminals_ out of jail?!" His mother's voice is scaling in pitch. "I thought you were working at a reputable firm! I thought you were handling Ministry cases!"

Percy sits, open-mouthed for a second. Where does he even begin? First, getting out on bail is, by definition, a release pending trial. Persons who are let out on bail have not yet been convicted of the crimes alleged, and a fair number of them will have their charges withdrawn or pled down for a conditional discharge or suspended sentence anyway. There's no reason to hold people pending trial unless they pose a serious and ongoing danger to society, and in fact it would be a waste of Ministry resources to do so. The system works, if weirdly and strangely and oddly, and most people are let out who should be. Percy thinks that, if anything, the courts err on the side of not releasing prisoners who should be released.

Second, he is at a reputable firm. Bones Goldstein is one of the best criminal defence firms in the country. His principal is _Lizzie Bones_ , one of the best criminal defence lawyers right now, specializing in sexual assault cases. The public largely hates her—but lawyers want to be her. She is confident, and she is mean, and she stands for what she believes in no matter now unpopular her view might be. Yes, she mocks him rather a lot, but Percy has been through worse and the reflected respect he hears ringing through people's voices when he goes to court and introduces himself is worth every jibe.

Third, he _is_ handling Ministry cases. Criminal law is, by definition, Ministry. He just happens to be working on the defence rather than on the prosecution, working to protect the people rather than to protect the state.

"I am?" he says, sounding more uncertain than he feels. The uncertainty is that he isn't sure which statement he's responding to, not because he doesn't know what he believes. "Yes, I was in bail court this morning, and Bones Goldstein is a very reputable firm. The best criminal defence firm in the country, you know."

"Criminal _defence_? _"_ His mother screeches. "Percy, that's dangerous! I thought you were working on Ministry cases, for the Ministry! I thought you wanted a good job, a respectable job, and you're—you're rubbing shoulders with criminals!"

Percy is, of his brothers, the least confrontational. It isn't that Percy doesn't yell—he does, but it's always for the easy things. Percy yelled at students at school for breaking the rules, he yells at the twins when they play pranks on him and mess up his things—but Percy doesn't _fight_. Percy doesn't take on hard topics, he doesn't feel the need to debate, and he doesn't want to sit there and defend the fact that really, cauldron bottom regulations are critical for ensuring public safety when he thinks no one is listening. Percy only takes on fights that matter.

Criminal defence is a fight that matters.

"Why is it dangerous?" Percy challenges, settling his fork down on his plate very deliberately. "Bill's a Curse-breaker, Charlie is a dragon-keeper, and the twins probably endanger themselves more with their inventions than they're willing to admit. Why is working in _criminal defence_ dangerous?"

"The people you're coming into contact with—"

"My clients?" Percy pushes his plate away. "Many of them are impoverished. A lot of them can't prove their blood status—a good number have little by way of formal education. Some are just unlucky, and even those that aren't tend to have reasons for what they did."

"Reasons?" His mother stares at him like he's grown another head.

"Reasons," Percy confirms, his voice dipping a few degrees. "And even if they didn't, they would be entitled to a full defence under law."

"How can you defend someone when you know they've done it?" Ron ventures, his eyes wide. Despite his words, he genuinely sounds interested.

"Because even if they did do it, the onus is on the Ministry to prove it." Percy folds his napkin on his lap with quick, sharp movements. "Because even if they did do it, everyone does stupid things from time to time, and whether or not you're criminally charged is often a matter of your station in life. The twins regularly commit assault, assault with a weapon, and any number of offences that might be characterized broadly as hexing people without their consent—if they were in the Lower Alleys, they'd probably have a record as long as their arms."

"But the twins aren't—"

"Cool, we're criminals," Fred interjects with a grin, while George shoots Percy a look that tells him that he needs to simmer down, let the twins defuse the situation. "At least we now have a brother who'll get us off! George, we should think about matching tattoos, don't you think?"

Percy sucks in a breath, reaching for his glass of water. George's voice is light, amused. "What makes you think I want a _matching_ tattoo with you? If we did, people could finally tell us apart—if we get one, it needs to be identical."

"Too true—"

"But what about everything you always wanted, dear?" Mum interrupts, still staring at Percy—Percy who has always been the easy one, Percy who likes structure and order and predictability, Percy who has never really fought for anything in his entire life. "Being a lawyer, yes, that makes sense—but you always wanted security, and you always craved a position of power. You can't get there in criminal defense, there's nothing lower than defending criminals."

Percy doesn't respond. Instead, he very deliberately puts down his glass of water, his head whirling with thoughts.

It isn't that this isn't _true._ Percy has always wanted power, and respect, and all the things that come with it. He did want to join the Ministry once, because it seemed like a secure path and a place where he could distinguish himself, a place where he could grow his family's profile. It's even true that, as well-respected as he might become as a criminal defense lawyer, it is a very different kind of respect than he would have gotten as an upper-level Ministry employee.

It's that the meaning of respect has changed. It's that Percy wants to be respected, but he wants to be respected for the things he has done, the beliefs that he stands up for, the wrongs that he has righted. He wants respect from the people who know what it is that he does, from people who stand with him in set date court, in bail court and at trial, defending the public from the vast array of micro-transgressions of individual rights that their state is so prone to committing. He wants to be Lizzie Bones, the less successful Bones sister, and yet the one that every lawyer wants to be.

He doesn't care about amorphous respect, anymore. He doesn't care about the Ministry position anymore, or about his fanciful thought of writing the laws that the Ministry has to follow. The Ministry doesn't even follow the laws already there, or he wouldn't be in set date court perpetually reminding them of their disclosure obligations. Writing the laws the Ministry needs to follow is not a matter of sitting and drafting, but the everyday work of a hundred defence lawyers who, case by case and hour by hour, hold the Ministry accountable to the rights they have won and push the law incrementally forward.

He has a memorandum to write.

"I have to go back to work," he says, and his voice is chilly. "I'm back in court tomorrow, and there's lots to do."

XXX

Percy moves out. Audrey helps him find a tiny bedsit in Muggle London, which is all he really needs. He's spent his entire life living with, first, a handful of siblings and then sharing a dorm at boarding school, and the privacy of even one room is all he needs. He'd trade his tiny kitchen for a private bathroom, but the shared bathroom down the hall is clean enough—and if it isn't, he can cast a mean Cleaning Charm.

It's not as if he spends much time at his bedsit anyway. Articling students traditionally work their tails off during articles, and he is no exception. Most of his time is spent at court, at the office, and, strangely, at Audrey's flat.

Her flat is nicer than his, and he learns that her parents, a witch and a Muggle, live in Birmingham. She can Apparate and does have an Apparition licence, but the way she puts it, she likes to live in the middle of the action. She's eighteen years old, with a satisfactory paycheque that goes farther in Muggle London than it does anywhere in Diagon Alley, and there are a thousand restaurants and pubs and bars for her to try. Her flat ends up being where they, being Percy, Audrey, and the other two students articling defence-side study for the PLTC and bar admission exams over endless boxes of Indian takeaway.

The PLTC is firmly divided into two camps. There is everyone that Percy went to school with at Hogwarts on the right side of the room, closer to the door; and there is Percy and Audrey and the other students from the criminal defence firms on the other side. It's easy to look at it as a blood barrier, but it's not that, not precisely. Most people who are defence-side are lesser-blooded and schooled abroad, which is logical given that they aren't allowed to work for the Ministry, and most of the full-service firms are careful to craft their appearance to be acceptable to the public at large. That means, in the current political environment, avoiding hiring halfbloods or Muggleborns in the absence of good reason.

It's more that criminal lawyers have always stood a little apart from the civil lawyers and solicitors. Their area of law is so specialized that Percy now considers himself lucky to have even gotten a position at a defence firm when he hasn't summered with one. Penny, of whom he had been so jealous months before, doesn't stand up in a courtroom until the end of January, and even then, it's only set date court. The other Hogwarts students talk about writing endless research memoranda, shadowing senior lawyers, taking notes and carrying bags.

By February, Percy is running his own trials. They aren't serious trials—they're not proceedings by indictment[11], for which only the lawyers have standing to argue, but they're his own files. They're his own cases, for which he runs almost entirely from beginning to end.

He runs a trial on a theft charge. It's a break-in at a shop just off Diagon Alley, but the factual matrix brings identity into question. The accused wasn't caught on the scene and had in fact been arrested several streets away, which Percy thought might give him enough for reasonable doubt. He gets lucky—the witnesses they had which might been able to link his client to the break-in simply don't remember enough. Or, maybe it's not luck so much as it is the fact that, given that the break-in was in the early evening and it was growing dark, Percy had counted on the fact that the witnesses wouldn't remember.

There's another trial on an assault charge. That one doesn't go so well—no matter how he poses the questions, the complainant's testimony is consistent, and between his testimony and the physical evidence, there's not much he can do. Instead, he focuses on sentencing submissions after the fact, pointing out that his client has no formal education and is agreeable to joining an anger management support group. The client is upset but leaves with a lesser sentence than he likely would have had otherwise.

He even runs a trial for assault with a weapon, to wit: water. It is one of his first clients, a file he has run almost from the first set-date. The facts are completely ridiculous. Eric Totten, a young man who has no priors and a decent job stocking shelves at an apothecary in Diagon Alley, got into a spitting match with Kurt Davis, a minor Ministry official, in the Leaky Cauldron over a dish that was erroneously served to Eric's table rather than Davis'. Davis, apparently in a very bad mood, begins the argument, and it ends when Eric says that Davis can enjoy eating the leftovers if it's that important to him and throws a glass of water in the other man's face. Unluckily for Eric, there is an Auror two booths over.

Percy enjoys taking apart Kurt Davis on the stand. He comes across as vindictive, too gleeful, while Eric comes across as understandably frustrated and annoyed and very sorry that he lost his temper. The trial takes most of a day, but His Honour ultimately grants an absolute discharge[12] noting the provocation and dryly comments that the complainant ought to consider a Drying Charm next time.

He stops going home for dinner—even before, when he did, it was an exception. It's easier for either him or Audrey to run out to Aroma Alley or Muggle London for takeaway and to work through dinner than it is to go home. His parents send him owls, and he replies only to say that he's fine, just busy. He's not angry or upset, he's just busy. And this is the truth.

Criminal law has always been a strange area in which to practice. The questions that his family has posed is no different than anyone else in the public, and it's something to which every criminal lawyer learns to respond. Practicing criminal law as defence counsel is about standing up for principles, about defending people who may have done horrible things, and about doing so in the face of unpopularity and criticism. Other lawyers understand, but few outside law do.

He works. He dockets two hundred and eighty hours in February, another three hundred hours in March. He, along with the other articling students, wrap themselves in a world of law and each other. The first time he ends up in bed with Audrey, it's hardly a surprise considering they've studied too late and drunk too much, Rob and Nadia have taken her sitting room couch and floor, and Percy just happens to end up in her bed.

The morning after, when she wakes up wrapped around him like he's her personal body pillow, that's a bit more surprising. She's worse than an octopus, and he's barely halfway disentangled himself when Rob shows up in the doorframe.

"Committing lawcest?" he asks with a smirk, and Percy only casts a withering glare at him.

"Hardly," he mutters, and he continues wiggling the rest of his way out from Audrey's arms and legs, making his way to the kitchen where he begins frying eggs and making toast.

The winter passes faster than he expects, a rhythm of court and client meetings and case preparation that he becomes better at managing as the days pass. It's almost as if he wakes up, and it's April, and he and every other articling student is staring at two weeks of exams. One week to prepare, and another to write. Eight exams, graded only pass or fail, but they need a straight line of passes as well as a recommendation by their principals to be called to the bar in May.

They hole up in Audrey's apartment with endless snacks and spend the time burning information into their brains. Percy is in a better position than most—his notes are organized and colour-coded, and he's already made it through the materials once. Audrey, feeling guilted, has at least managed to read the materials with a highlighter, while the other two are frantically paging through their books. Percy thinks about making them study schedules, but eventually just tells them to toss the Professional Responsibility and Criminal Law sections and to focus on everything else. They have no experience in the other areas of law, ranging from Contracts to Civil Procedure to Real Property, so they are far likelier to fail them than the areas in which they practiced for the last ten months.

The exams are three hours long each, two per day, over a week. The procedures to get into the exams are stricter than even the OWLs and the NEWTs that Percy sat at Hogwarts. They all arrive two hours early to be searched, and while Percy makes it through clear, Nadia has a package of Muggle feminine hygiene products confiscated because the invigilators deem that they can somehow be used for cheating. Audrey is at a loss, since it isn't her time of the month, but Penny slips over and teaches her a quick emergency spell that she uses when she's been caught unprepared.

Someone in the room has a cold, the entire week of the exams. It drives Percy wild, the sniffling, and on the third day a bird is trapped in the building and spends the entire time chirping. They're made to write with Anti-Cheating quills, which drive Percy crazy after months of using non-drippy Muggle pens, but at least he knows how to use them. The students who were educated abroad had to go out of their way to learn how to write, and they're all obviously slower at it than any of the ones trained at Hogwarts.

That shouldn't impact their scores, though. The trick with these exams is that they aren't a matter of writing speed, they're a matter of thought, and a succinct answer is often better than a lengthy one. The exams aren't hard—they're meant to provide a baseline of competence, and these exams are considerably easier than either the OWLs or the NEWTs. The hardest part about becoming a lawyer is making it through articling, and Percy knows he's flown through it already.

Eight exams, over four days. And when he walks out of the Inns of Court after his Estates and Trusts exam, it is May.

XXX

He sends an owl home to his parents, letting them know the date of his Call to the Bar ceremony. It'll be the first time he dons his tabs[13] as well as his robes, and it's a weekday in the middle of May. He doesn't know who else in his family will be able to attend, or who would even want to attend. His younger siblings are all at Hogwarts still, and Bill and Charlie are abroad. It's him, and it's his parents, and it's the new circle of friends he has developed among the defence bar.

The morning of the Call to the Bar, his robes are pressed and swing neatly above his polished boots. It takes him a few minutes to decipher the clasp on his tabs, and to put them on so they lay properly on his chest, but he's at the Inns of Court well before time. They all need to file their petitions for admission to the bar, including a certificate of fitness and recommendation signed by their articling principals, and then they need to sign the Rolls of the Court. There are only ten articled students this year, but somehow it still takes over an hour for each of them to present their documents, to pick up the quill, and to sign the Rolls. He takes the time to fix Audrey's tabs, which she has somehow managed to put on upside-down.

In the courtyard of the Inns of Court, Percy can't help turning around to look for his family members. His parents are there—he spots the shock of red hair identifying them—and he breaks into a smile as Bill gives him a small wave. He can see Nadia's parents, at the back of the courtyard, and Audrey turns around to poke him and point out her own parents. Even her father is there, looking uncomfortable in robes that he isn't used to wearing as a Muggle, but this is a ceremony among lawyers and the Inns of Court are notoriously defensive of their self-regulation. No one will be commenting on the Muggles in Diagon Alley today.

A year of sleepless nights, too much work, and a hundred new experiences lead to this moment. Over the last year, he's made new friends. He's worked hard, negotiating with the prosecution, meeting clients, drafting submissions and researching obscure points of criminal law. He's gotten lost at least six times in the bowels of the Great Library, and he's developed a taste for Guinness and jazz. He's moved out, experienced the strange thrill and exhaustion of trial, and he's being called to the bar.

The first Weasley lawyer in, he thinks, ever.

When Lady Bones, the invited speaker for this year's pool of applicants, gestures for them to stand for their oaths, Percy doesn't hesitate.

"Repeat after me," she says, with a warmer smile than Percy has ever seen her wear in court, and she flicks out an old, yellowed scroll, and begins reading with pauses every half-sentence for the students to murmur the words after her.

"I accept the honour and privilege, duty and responsibility of practising law as a barrister and solicitor of the nation of Wizarding Britain. I shall protect and defend the rights and interests of such persons as may employ me. I shall conduct all cases faithfully and to the best of my ability. I shall neglect no one's interest and shall faithfully serve and diligently represent the best interests of my client. I shall not refuse causes of complaint reasonably founded, nor shall I promote suits upon frivolous pretences. I shall not pervert the law to favour or prejudice anyone, but in all things I shall conduct myself honestly and with integrity and civility. I shall seek to ensure access to justice and access to legal services. I shall seek to improve the administration of justice. I shall champion the rule of law and safeguard the rights and freedoms of all persons. I shall strictly observe and uphold the ethical standards that govern my profession. All this I do swear to observe and perform to the best of my knowledge and ability."

The words are old, and they're weighty with the sense of thousands of people swearing it before him. There's no magic in it—only responsibility. He feels a mantle of duty settle on his shoulders, and he welcomes it.

His parents are proud. Dad is a little perplexed, but Mum's smile is huge as she wraps him in a congratulatory hug.

"I'm sorry for arguing with you," she whispers in his ear as she lets him go. "I was just surprised, that's all. As long as you're happy, that's all I need. We're so proud of you."

"Thank you, Mum," Percy replies, letting a rare smile come out across his face. Bill slaps him on the back, all the approval that Percy needs.

"What comes next?" he asks, wiggling his eyebrows. "Barrister and solicitor—Ministry job? Another firm? Setting up your own firm?"

"I'm going back to Bones Goldstein," Percy admits. It isn't expected—most students with the major full-service firms or the Ministry can expect to be hired back for at least a year, but most in criminal law are sent out to build their own practices. The fact that Percy has gotten hired back is unusual, possible only because Steve has decided to steal Audrey for his own, newly established firm that will specialize in self-defence cases, leaving an opening for Percy.

It isn't the Ministry. Percy doesn't even want to work at the Ministry anymore, nor does he want try for a job in a full-service firm, if they would even have him. The more he looks at his former classmates there, and the more he looks at where he was, he feels like he ended up where he belonged. He isn't carrying boxes for other people. He isn't taking notes for other people. He has his own responsibilities, his own clients, his own files. He stands up in court on his own every day. For all that the Ministry and the full-service firms have more prestige, he thinks he's gotten more experience being a lawyer than anyone else from Hogwarts.

Law isn't anything like what he had expected. It isn't the haven from neapotism that he had once sought; he doesn't even earn as much as he would have had he taken an entry-level Ministry job. He is respected, but less so by the public at large than he would have originally wanted; instead, the respect he receives is from his colleagues, from other lawyers at the bar. His success depends on himself, but it is also built on a foundation of guidance from people like Lizzie Bones, his articling principal, or Audrey Smith and Nadia Zaman and Robert McCormick, his fellow articling students. It very much matters what his personality is like, because his personality is what the full-service firms rejected, but it also makes him a fit in criminal defence. He doesn't write new laws.

But he does help people. He helps people, and he holds the Ministry accountable for their actions. The law is a complicated, multilayered beast, where there is good, and there is bad, and there is beauty.

XXX

[1] Law as a profession in common law jurisdictions is traditionally entered into by way of an apprenticeship called "articling". In recent years, many countries have gotten rid of the articling requirement and replaced it with schooling and exams, but many common-law jurisdictions still include articling as a requirement for licencing. It is residency for lawyers.

[2] Full-service firms are law firms that, in theory, handle any sort of legal problem that one might have, from real estate to a tax dispute to litigation. Despite the name, however, most will not handle criminal law. Most of these firms serve large businesses and corporations.

[3] Traditionally law firms are not permitted to incorporate, so the structure is a partnership. Partners are part-owners of a firm, and generally they have associates (employees) that work under them and for which they are entitled to a portion of the billed income. "Making partner" is a big deal at firms. Senior Counsel is the same prestige as making partner for lawyers who work in government or in-house at a bank or other corporation.

[4] An articling principal, being the lawyer responsible for the articled student. In jurisdictions requiring articling, the articling principal is responsible for the student's education and is the one certifying that the student should be admitted to the bar. Without certification, one cannot be admitted to the bar.

[5] Become judges. In not-American common-law jurisdictions, judges are appointed, not elected, often from a list of names put together and recommended to government by the bar association.

[6] The ceremony for being admitted to the bar is called the Call to the Bar. In most courtrooms, there is a physical bar or barrier separating lawyers from the public, and only lawyers are permitted to cross it. Even law students need explicit permission of the court to cross the bar.

[7] A note on language: in general, "attorney" is not used for lawyers outside America and in fact has a very different meaning legally as it is just "someone with authority to act for someone else", e.g. power of attorney. More commonly, lawyers are called "counsel". In some jurisdictions people might use "barrister" or "solicitor". In the UK (but not in this fic), law is a split profession where one is either a barrister (a courtroom lawyer) or a solicitor (not a courtroom lawyer), but not necessarily both. Most other jurisdictions (Canada, Australia, US) have a unified profession where all lawyers are both barristers and solicitors

[8] A conditional discharge is basically probation without a criminal record. Finish the probation, plus normally a "wait period" of usually 3 years after the probation ends with no further problems, and the charge disappears off the criminal record automatically. Suspended sentences are probation but there will be a criminal record.

[9] Lawyer slang for two different theft charges: theft under $5000 tends to be treated as a minor offence or misdemeanour, theft over $5000 can be (but isn't always) treated as indictable or a felony.

[10] Sureties – when released on bail, the surety is another person who guarantees, often with their money on the line, that you'll behave and show up for trial. Being released on your own recognizance means the system trusts you enough (or you've put up enough of your own money that you can be trusted) to behave and show up at your own trial.

[11] More serious (indictable) offences have different rules. As an articled student, Percy has standing for summary conviction or misdemeanour offences, but not for indictable offences or felonies. Usually this comes with a more formalized court procedure, including preliminary inquiries, etc.

[12] This is the lowest level sentence anyone can get—it's a finding of guilt that does not go on your criminal record with no other conditions or probation.

[13] Lawyer wear along with the robes. It looks like a white ascot left hanging out. In the UK, barristers also wear white wigs, poor souls. Percy would look awful in a wig, though I did have him wear one in Vanguard.

XXX

 _ANs:_ _Not only are there footnotes, there are endnotes! I dug deep into my memories to put this piece together, because really... no one quite understands what it is to be a lawyer until they go through the process and become a lawyer. So here are the more general comments on choices I made and lawyer culture that I built in, which didn't need to be included in the footnotes._

 _In general, this piece is being written with a Canadian perspective in mind. There are more differences in UK and Australian law than may seem apparent (e.g., while there are a host of UK statutes that create offences/impose penalties, they don't have a Criminal Code, and many common crimes are governed entirely by common law)._

 _In terms of the legal education process, articling is and remains the licensing process for many common-law jurisdictions, including mine. Usually, this is combined with the bar exams, though the bar exams are considerably easier and have pass rates well over 90%. The true barrier really is finding articles. Like Percy goes through over Interview Weekend, the vast majority of articling gigs are given out in a heavily micromanaged process over about a week. If you don't get a job in it, you really have to pound the pavement to find an articling principal to take you on. The interviews themselves can be either substantive or conversational; substantive interviews are like oral exams, but conversational ones are essentially chatting about interests. Most law firms prefer conversational interviews because they figure if you are passing law school, you're smart enough, they just want to know whether or not they'll want to kill you if they spend more than twelve hours a day with you. What personality you can show off in thirty minutes is extraordinarily important._

 _The UK draws a significant distinction between barristers & solicitors, and the licensing processes for each are totally separate. So Percy would really be going for a barristers' role if he was in the UK. I made the choice to collapse the two professions in this fic because first, a unified profession is what I know, and second, given the assumed to be small population of Wizarding Britain, a split profession didn't make much sense to me._

 _In general, in this fic, I had the negotiations happen in set date court itself, but in real life this would happen by phone or email prior to the court date itself and court would just be to "execute" whatever was agreed or not agreed in advance. I made the decision to change this partly to make the fic work but also because the wizarding world doesn't have anything equivalent to phone/email at this time-there are physical visits (not convenient considering that these conversations last under five minutes normally), Floo calls (terrible for confidentiality and security reasons), and Owls (messy and slow)._

 _Articling students do traditionally work very hard, and two to three hundred hours a month is quite normal. Culturally, making it through articles is a badge of honour, so there's little impetus to change. Law and articling students do end up often committing lawcest and dating or sleeping with each other, which is an act simultaneously frowned upon and extremely common._

 _Criminal lawyers tend to cluster among themselves early on. Criminal defence firms are very picky; getting into one usually requires summering in criminal defence. Personality-wise, criminal law also tends to attract a very different crowd than the full-service firms or other areas. Criminal defence lawyers really do hear everything that, first, Percy says about criminal defence, and then that he hears from his family. I should also note that everything that Percy says to Penny about not being able to work for the defence but wanting to work for the Ministry would absolutely enrage any criminal lawyer, who often bounce between prosecution and defence throughout their careers. In this fic, the criminal defence students except for Percy all happen to be lesser-blooded, and in real life it's still where lawyers from more disadvantaged backgrounds tend to go. For the most part, criminal defence is considered less prestigious than getting a big law job, and it is nowhere near as well-paid. But at the same time, we're all sworn to the same oath, which is included here in an slightly amended state._

 _I always liked the couple paragraphs of Percy and Rigel talking about him becoming a lawyer, because none of what they say is wrong, but it's also not really right. The legal profession has as much neapotism as politics, but unlike politics, really does hold merit as an ideal and strive for it. Even though most firms won't directly hire children of their partners, the use of conversational interviews still selects for people from upper-class backgrounds (hard to talk about hobbies you can't afford). People don't always listen to you, and when they give you instructions you often have to obey even if it's contrary to your recommendations. Your success is founded on having a great articling principal, mentors, and colleagues, as much as it is on your own work. Lawyers make a huge range of incomes, from very little to quite a lot, and as a criminal defence lawyer, Percy isn't likely to earn that much (it'll be more than enough, but he'll never earn as much as he would have had he gone to the Ministry). And in terms of respect, criminal defence lawyers have to learn to accept public disrespect, in exchange for the respect of their peers._

 _It's complicated, but there is still something so wonderful about belonging to a profession that is so flawed, and yet strives so hard to be better._


	4. sacrifice

_ANs: Written for royal_purple as part of the Rigel Black Exchange Round 1._

 _Summary:_ _Christie Blake made a decision in 1977, and she can't take it back. That doesn't mean she doesn't want to._

XXX

There is a package on her desk.

It is small and square, wrapped in heavy brown paper and tied with twine, sitting on the centre of her leather desk pad. She stops for a minute, breathing through the rising tide of anxiety that threatens to swallow her, through the sudden ache of pain in her gut. She knows what it is, and she both wants to see it, wants to rip it open right here and now, and she wants to never see it or think about it ever.

Instead, because it's the beginning of the workday, because she can't afford to let her team see her in the middle of a full-blown panic attack, and because she has secrets, she very deliberately walks to her desk, picks up the package, and slides it into her bag. She will look at it later.

She always does.

XXX

Twice a year. The packages are left on her desk twice a year, once in September and again in January. Evan leaves them for her, knowing that she can only rarely bear to see him in person. He induces panic attacks.

She went on sabbatical for three years after Aldon was born, fully funded by the company. Evan has a silver tongue, and he convinced everyone that a doctoral degree in alchemy was in the company's best interests. She can't help but be pitifully, pathetically grateful, even if Evan is the reason that she needs to flee. It turns out to be a good choice, because every few years when it all becomes too much, when she decides that she needs to run, there's always a position somewhere in the world that will take her for a year on a research sabbatical. Evan always manages to get her the year off, no questions asked.

She doesn't see him—Aldon, that is, not Evan. She tries not to see Evan, either, but there are meetings that need to happen, especially when she is promoted to division head. Thankfully, nearly all of those meetings are with ten other division heads or the Board of Directors, and there are very few moments that she needs to spend alone with Evan.

It's for the best, she tells herself, year after year. She and Evan had seen the writing on the wall, through the many years of their relationship. When they first started seeing each other, they kept it quiet because Evan was the son of the Head, and the Rosier Heir, and she was a nobody. Then, being Muggleborn hadn't mattered so much. Muggleborns were still common enough, still being hired within the Ministry and at St. Mungo's and in many other companies. It had been her non-noble status that had been the problem, and Evan just needed time.

Then, things started changing underneath them. The laws stayed the same, but preferential policies were put in place to prefer Hogwarts graduates. What little anti-discrimination laws that were in place were quietly repealed in the name of greater freedom for businesses. More Muggleborns began staying abroad in America, where they received better job offers, and Christie began seeing fewer and fewer people like her in Wizarding Britain. With fewer Muggleborns in the population, and without Muggleborns at Hogwarts, the words that people used to describe her and people like her started changing.

The writing was on the wall well before 1981. By 1976, when she was pregnant with Aldon, the Hogwarts Board of Governors had brought motions to exclude halfbloods from the school twice over, defeated by narrower and narrower margins. In the Wizengamot, there was legislation on the table to prevent any organization above a certain size from hiring anyone educated abroad, and even if it hadn't passed yet, it was only a matter of time.

Aldon is happy now, she reminds herself. Evan says he is happy, and all the pictures he gives her shows him smiling, laughing. He's the acknowledged Rosier Heir, and he goes to Hogwarts as a pureblood. Because he is considered a pureblood, every door is open to him—he can take a job at the Ministry if he wants, no one will hold his blood status against him in his personal or professional life, and he can be and do anything he wants. Everything that should be his will be his, and she did the right thing by giving him up.

It takes her two glasses of wine before she has the courage to fetch the package from her bag. Aldon is sixteen, now, almost seventeen. She could never bear to see him, not even when Evan had suggested it. There were a thousand ways that Evan could design that would have her able to see him. She could have become a "family friend"; he could have brought Aldon to the office more.

She could never have borne it, though. She could hardly look at Evan, so how could she look at the child she once gave up?

Pictures are safer.

Her hands reach for the twine holding the brown package shut. One tug of her fingers, and the twine falls away, opening Evan's biannual gift. There's a letter on top, because there's always a letter on top, and Christie puts it aside. She knows what it will say: Evan loves her. He misses her. He wishes she would let him see her, and he wishes things were different. He'll offer to give her things, a million things that she would love, if she would just see him again.

She'll read it when she feels stronger. Or maybe, when she feels weaker. Sometimes, rarely, his words convince her, and they go out—dinner, a movie. A weekend trip to France, or Italy, or Greece. A few weeks, a few months, and then she'll remember all the reasons why it can't happen. And then she'll find another project abroad and take another sabbatical.

There's a box. Of course, there's a box. There's always a box, something for her, something from Evan to tell her in the only form he knows how that he loves her. It'll be something she likes, because after so many years he does know her taste, and it'll be beautiful. She pulls it open, seeing the delicate, sapphire moon on a silver chain.

It's exquisite, and she'll never wear it. It'll join the collection of other, similarly stunning pieces of jewellery in her closet.

Underneath, she sees the pictures.

Aldon is sixteen years old now, and he still looks just like his father. There are the same gold eyes that drew Christie so many years ago, dark hair that is artfully tousled just the way that Evan had done so many years ago. He is slighter in form than his father, his chin is pointed rather than square, but otherwise he seems to take nothing from her.

It's better that way.

There's a picture of him in formal robes, looking very handsome with a smile on his face as he stands with Evan and Lina. There's another of him dancing, later that night with a girl that Christie doesn't know; she wonders if Aldon likes her, or if it's only politeness. A third picture of Aldon standing with his friends, laughing. The pictures have dried up a little since Aldon started school, but the few that exist are all that she needs.

Her hands shake as she touches each one. She wants. She wants to see Aldon in person, she wants to talk to him. She wants to touch him, hug him, hold him. She wants to know if he's as much like his father as his pictures suggest.

She can't.

XXX

She is working late, one evening in April, when Evan walks in.

She freezes, her hands shaking, her heart pounding. Evan stops near the doorway, waiting for her to collect herself. Normally, she needs at least a day to prepare to see Evan. Without it, she chokes. Her breath catches in her throat and her chest aches, but she's also soaring, some part of her leaping for joy. If soulmates exist, then Evan is hers, but that doesn't mean she should be with him.

"I need to speak to you," he says. His voice is low and melodious. "Please, Christie."

She takes a moment to breathe, or maybe it's a few moments. Maybe even a few minutes, but Evan waits for her.

"What is it?" she asks, trembling slightly. The room is shrinking around her, around them, and Evan only needs a few steps to reach her desk. He is tall, broad-shouldered, and more than twenty-five years later she still finds him as handsome as she did the day they met.

"I'm here to ask you a favour," Evan admits. He doesn't sit in the chair across from her, stays standing with a concerned, apologetic furrow in his brow. "Aldon wants to return to your division in the summer. You were away last summer, so I saw no harm in letting him work there last year but—he wants to return."

Christie stares at him and realizes she has stopped breathing. She sucks in a breath, which rattles a little in her chest.

"I—should I…"

"No, no!" Evan reaches out a hand, then drops it when Christie takes a step back. "No, please—stay. But Aldon is… he is much like you, by his interests. He is academic, intrigued by magical theory. He wants this, Christie."

"Even you can't—can't swing another sabbatical for me so soon after my last one." Christie looks away. "I don't know that I can—"

"You can," Evan insists. "He—he's good at what he does, and there will always be others around, and he won't—he deserves this, Christie. Please."

She stops, closes her mouth, and she breathes. One breath, two breaths, three. It's not that she doesn't want Aldon to work in her division. She wants it—she wants to see what he's like, and Evan admitting that he is much like her only makes her want it more. But Aldon knows nothing, and he shouldn't know anything. Can she handle having him around her an entire summer?

She doesn't know if she can.

"Don't let our relationship affect him," Evan pleads, his gold eyes begging. "It's not fair to him. What we did, how he came to be, that isn't his fault. Please, Christie."

It wouldn't be fair to Aldon if she refuses. She wonders if it's fair to her if she does.

But mothers make sacrifices. Mothers make it work, and they don't allow their emotional issues to affect their children.

"All right," she says, looking away. "Just—just send him here directly at nine-thirty on his first day. I'll—I'll deal with it."

XXX

When he arrives, her colleagues welcome him with smiles, a few pats on the back. She only sits back and watches him, drinking him in.

He looks just like his pictures, and yet not at all. His hair is dark and tousled, his eyes bright gold and curious, and a small smile dances across his face as he greets everyone in the room. His robes are perfectly tailored, not that Christie thought that Evan would ever have allowed otherwise, and she can hear that his voice is light and musical. He is in her division, and he is real, and he lives and breathes and moves in three dimensions. He is nothing like his pictures.

In person, she can see that he does take after her family, at least a little. He is slight in his photos, but even more so in real life. He is only her height—tall for a woman, but short compared to most men—and he is slender and lean like the men in her family, not like his father. The photos make him out to be bigger than he is, she thinks, and they don't carry across the life in front of her. He is greeting her colleagues, polite but a little stiff, and no one tries to hug him.

It takes her a few minutes to gather the courage to approach. It takes the fact that her entire team is watching for her to approach. Aldon is real, and he is here, and he is seventeen.

He has no idea who she is, and it's better for him that it stays that way.

"Aldon Rosier," she says, coming forward and offering her hand. She smiles, but it trembles. "Your father said that you were interested in returning to New Developments for another summer. He says you are interested in magical theory."

Aldon pauses, a slight frown bringing his eyebrows together. He glances at her hand, and his shoulders stiffen for a second. His golden eyes snap up, flashing with uncertainty, but he takes her hand.

"That's right," he says, and he smiles.

XXX

 _ANs: in retrospect, one of my favourite things about this ficlet is that it ends at a very pivotal moment in Liar Liar, entirely without Christie's knowledge. This is the moment that Aldon figures out who Christie is, without confirmation, which I just find so great._


	5. Running the Gauntlet

_ANs: Written for Elsin as part of the Rigel Black Exchange Round 1. Elsin, you are one of my most favourite people, and I am so happy you didn't hate it._

 _Summary:_ _There is a wedding, and because there is a wedding, there are door games._

XXX

"Door games are so outdated," Graeme complained, tugging his traditional surcoat on. "You know that, right? Fei says no one does them in Singapore anymore."

"Tina wants door games," Will replied, an edge to his voice. Neal was pretty sure it wasn't the door games giving him the edge, so much as it was his upcoming nuptials that afternoon. Assuming they could get him through the gauntlet of whatever the Kowalski siblings managed to throw at them to earn their favour, that was. "Tina wants door games, and she's getting door games, so you're helping me. It's _traditional_."

"I have the money," Jessa added, appearing from behind them in a blue-and-gold _qipao_ , a blue shawl glowing with heating runes around her shoulders. She slapped a pile of red envelopes in her hands, folding them out into a fan for them all to see. "If they throw anything too crazy at us, we'll buy them off."

"How much is that?" Neal asked suspiciously, eyeing the envelopes. Jessa was seventeen, not even out of Ilvermorny yet, and she didn't have any money of her own. She had to have helped herself to his bank accounts. Again.

"Not willing to give up a bit of money for the good cause of getting our brother married?" She shot him an impish grin. "You're heartless, Neal."

" _Jessa_ …"

She laughed. "Eighty pounds each, and I have nine red bags here. Lucky numbers, and all that."

Neal ran the numbers in his head. "That's _seven hundred and twenty pounds,_ Jess! Over a thousand Canadian dollars!"

"You can afford it." She shrugged, flippant, tucking the red bags into the tiny bag she carried at her side with her fan. "You wouldn't even notice, if I didn't tell you. Come on, before Will dies of the stress. Door games are fun! We're supposed to _help_ him, everyone."

"Helping him is not my usual role as the eldest brother." Graeme sighed, but he was smiling as he slung an arm over Will's shoulders. "But I'll make an exception for your wedding day."

Francesca Lam stood in the middle of the lists, already in her dark blue bridesmaid gown, her own heated shawl over her shoulders. December and cold it might be, but she showed no sign of it. Instead, her eyes sparkled with mischief and she had sheaf of paper in her hands. She took a moment to scan the four Queenscoves standing in front of her.

"It's time for _dǔmén_ _yóuxì_ – or, in my language, _wan san long!_ " She announced, a bright smile spreading across her face. "You, William Queenscove, want to marry my sister, Porpentina Kowalski, so let's see if you deserve it. We, the Kowalskis, have prepared _four_ challenges for you. For the first three, you are allowed to receive help from your siblings, but the last challenge must be done alone. As you know, you aren't allowed to see Tina until you pass our tests, but you can be sure that she's watching."

"And recording," Will muttered, but Neal still caught it, and by the way Francesca's eyes flicked over to him, she had heard it too. She ignored it.

"Your first challenge is a test of intelligence." She took three steps forward, tiny steps because she was wearing her evening heels already and handed Will the sheaf of paper in her hands. "A man who wants to marry my sister must be _smart_."

" _Taberbak._ " Graeme said, peeking over Will's shoulder. Dreading what he would see, Neal leaned over and looked too, only to see a page of numbers and symbols, algebra springing off the page at him. He hadn't done math like this in years – not since third-year No-Maj Studies, and a bit in No-Maj Medicine.

"Your Mandarin is shit, you know," Jessa said conversationally, fishing in her bag for the pile of red bags. "How about we pay you off, Francesca? You could pay for some elocution classes."

Francesca yawned, too big and unimpressed, and obviously faked. "I'm from Hong Kong by way of California. I don't need to know Mandarin."

"I mean, there are a lot of other things you could buy with money." Jessa tried again, waving the fan of red bags in front of the other girl. She was taller than Francesca, even without heels. "Clothes, books, CDs…"

"Save it for the next few challenges," Francesca replied, shooing her back to where Will was already frowning with a pen, puzzling his way through the first few problems.

" _Câlice_ ," Jessa muttered, turning back and putting her head close to Will and Neal's. "I can't do math. I'm going to go join the cheering section with Graeme."

"Hard to bribe someone already rich," Neal replied absently, taking the second page of the math test. "We'll split it, Will. Hand me a pen."

It took them an hour to do the math test, between the two of them. It wasn't that the test was _long_ , only about six pages, but the questions got harder as they went on, and it was material that the two of them barely remembered, if they had ever known it. Francesca seemed completely content to watch them from a bench on the other side of the lists, and Neal could have sworn she was smirking. When they finished it, they handed it to her, and watched as she scored it against a sheet she already had at her side.

"Forty-eight percent." She shook her head in mock pity. "That's not just an Asian-fail, that's a real fail. I'm disappointed." She pouted, and Neal had never seen a more fake expression in his entire life.

"Jessa!" Will was faster than Neal, this time.

"I'll let it go for, hmmm… four of those red bags." Francesca finished, holding her hand out for Will to slap four red bags in her hand, which she promptly tucked under a bra strap. She paused again, this one not for effect, and then she smiled. "I _suppose_ I can give you two pity points for the two shameful expressions you're wearing right now. You pass my challenge."

She walked off the field, patting her brother, John Kowalski, on the shoulder as he appeared from the barracks, on the far end of the lists. _Tabernak_.

"Your next challenge," John said, reaching them with a wicked grin on his face, "is a test of mental fortitude. You can have your siblings help you with this one, though I'm not sure how much help they'll be."

That was about as much warning as Will got before John assaulted his mind, a full mental assault that drove Will to one knee.

"Out of the way, little bro," Graeme said, shoving Neal backwards. "We do this in Auror training, so I got this!"

Neal retreated to the benches to sit with Jessa, watching jealously as Graeme hooked one arm around Will and threw himself into meditation. Neal had heard that warfare in the mental arts could be fascinating, whole panoramas created and destroyed, but he had never picked up much skill at it. He had some skill at Occlumency, as most heirloom-casters did, and which John absolutely knew Will would have, but it was nothing on that level.

"I can't even try to pay him off right now, can I?" Jessa asked, disgruntled, fiddling with her five remaining red bags.

"I'm sure you'll have to pay him off anyway," Neal said, wrapping an arm around her. "And if you don't, it _is_ my money, so I'd like it back."

"No way, I stole this money fair and square, and there's a shopping spree in London with my name on it."

Neal sighed, vowing to return to the topic later if they didn't spend it all, and looked back to the action.

Will, Graeme, and John were frozen, in eerie tableau, for almost half an hour before John shook his head, a wry grin coming across his face, and both Will and Graeme staggered to their feet. "Not bad, considering neither of you are Masters of the Mind Arts. And I have enough secrets on both of you now that if you try anything against my sister, I know exactly where to hit you to see that it hurts. I'll take…"

Jessa was across the field in a flash, red bags in hand.

"Two of those, yeah. I think Gerry and I deserve a _really_ nice date. You pass my test." He smirked and sauntered off, joining Francesca where she sat on a bench, watching the rest of the door games.

"That's two challenges down," Jessa said, slapping Will on the back. "Halfway there, but we only have three bags left, so we have to do better."

"Unfortunately," a familiar voice said, his voice haunted with a slight lisp that Neal could place anywhere, "your third challenge is a test of physical strength. Your siblings are permitted to help you, but I'm not sure even all four of you combined can defeat me."

All four of them looked at each other: Graeme's eyes were wide in horror, Will was pale even his mouth was fixed in determination, Neal was grimly resigned while Jessa looked almost excited.

" _Chrisse_ ," Neal said, turning around to face Alexander Willoughby Dragić. "You aren't even a Kowalski, and you're supposed to be in Serbia!"

The dhampir already had his sword out, and he was spinning loops with it casually in one hand. "Ah, but I had private business to see to in Britain, and when Aldon told me about your games, I could hardly help volunteering my time."

"Aldon is _also_ not a Kowalski!"

"Yet," Alex replied agreeably. "Aldon is not a Kowalski _yet_ , but I believe in him. Draw your weapons. Let's fight."

"I have three bags left," Jessa said, quiet, pulling off her shawl and bag to set aside. She shook out her arms, her fan already in hand. "However we do this, we have to bargain him down to less than three bags."

" _Câlice_ , Will, you're expensive to marry off," Neal murmured, but Will had already pulled his sword from the air and had thrown himself at the dhampir. "Fine. Let's go – four on one should give even that half-vampire hardass a tough time."

Jessa had already launched a stream of fire at Alex, but Neal didn't worry about it as he pulled his own sword and plunged into the fray. Her fire would skew off him, because they were blood, and because she didn't want to hurt him.

He, unlike either Graeme or Will, had spent nearly three months some years ago training with Alex. Alex was _good_ , but he wasn't undefeatable with the sword. As a strict matter of technique, Neal often thought that he had the man outclassed, but Alex was also absurdly strong and fast, which compensated. He had no sooner shoved Will back when Neal was there, throwing his own blade in a middle guard with a yell.

Alex brought his blade crashing down on Neal's head, so he blocked and kneed his friend in the stomach. It had next to no effect, instead only making Alex laugh, so he ducked and rolled before Alex could bring his full strength to bear against him. Graeme was next, aiming a slash at Alex's side, and he turned to engage.

They should have been better than they were, but Alex was good. The dhampir had drawn back to a wall, the wall opposite to the barracks and the castle, and Neal couldn't help but think it was a very nice view for Tina somewhere. The difficulty of the wall was that he and his brothers couldn't _flank_ the dhampir without getting in each other's way – while Jessa's fire spells might not hurt them, their blades certainly would.

Jessa was the most help. She stayed out of the way, hitting Alex with spells when she had a clear shot, while he and his brothers kept the dhampir distracted. It was her slashing and fire spells that left their marks, and it was her blow, one last Vertigo Hex, that made Alex reel. It was, luckily, Will who was engaging with him at that time, and he was fast to tackle the dhampir, dragging him into the dirt.

"Yield?" his brother panted, his sword pressed against the back of Alex's neck.

"I yield," Alex replied easily, his face buried in the snow. Will rolled off of him, allowing him to stand and look himself over.

There was a pause, and Neal's eyes narrowed.

"I'm going to need new clothes to attend the ceremony tonight," Alex said eventually, brushing himself off. "Unless you want me to show up with these burns and bloodstains?"

"You are the _worst_ at subtlety," Neal groaned, even as Jessa pulled out one of the remaining red bags and held it out. "The absolute _worst_."

"Only one?"

Neal had never seen the impassive dhampir sounding _disappointed_ before, but indeed he did. Jessa hesitated a second, glancing at Will, before reaching into her bag and adding a second one.

"Two?" Alex drew out the word, considering the bags. "You can surely do better than that. I went easy on you."

Will shot Jessa a look, and even Jessa looked a little worried as she reached back into her bag and pulled out the last red bag, adding it to the pile with a shaky hand.

"Three left? Excellent." Alex smirked as he plucked the bags out of Jessa's hands. "I happen to also be in need of money. You pass my challenge."

He sauntered away, joining John and Francesca on the bench.

"All _three?_ " Graeme was hissing at Jessa. "There's still one challenge left! What are we going to do?"

"What did you want me to do?" Jessa retorted, then she sighed. "Look, Francesca said that we were only allowed to help with the first three challenges, so I don't know if he could pay this one off anyway… hopefully it's like, a song and dance routine or something."

" _Ostie_ , it better not be," Neal muttered. "Will, sing or dance? Kill me now."

"And take your title? Don't tempt me." Jessa grinned, tugging him and Graeme to a bench. "Look, they aren't going to ask him anything impossible—"

"They sure as hell did on that math test," Graeme grumbled.

"So let's just sit and enjoy it, eh?"

Neal laughed, feeling warm even in the snow, sandwiched between his oldest and his youngest siblings. It wasn't often that he got to spend time with all of them anymore – with Graeme returning to Montréal after the war, Jessa still finishing school at Ilvermorny, and Will in Geneva, there just wasn't much opportunity. At least they had Queenscove now, a huge ancestral home they could all come home to, anytime. He wrapped one arm around each of them, watching as Aldon Rosier, the Lord Rosier, strolled out into the lists.

"Your final challenge," his friend said, the glimmer of a smile on his face, "is simple. You cannot ask for help with my test, but you need only answer this question truthfully. Do you, William Queenscove, love Porpentina Kowalski?"

Will didn't hesitate. "Yes, with all my heart and soul."

Neal couldn't help but grin, even while Graeme and Jessa groaned in mutual disgust.

"Ugh, that was sappy. I'm dying."

"Too much cheese. I'm lactose-intolerant."

"It's his _wedding,_ " Neal whispered to them, not even trying to hide his grin. "If this isn't a time to be cheesy and sappy and romantic and in love, then when is?"

"I don't know if I believe in that kind of love," Graeme muttered in reply. "Will is just a romantic sap. So are you, by the way."

"So are our _parents_ ," Neal retorted. "We come by it honestly. Don't know where you and Jessa got your cynicism. And watch!"

Aldon had been silent, considering the statement. Not that Neal had any doubts – Aldon was just playing it up for dramatic effect, to make Will stew in uncertainty for a moment.

It wasn't working, because Will was anything but uncertain. No, his second-eldest brother was now glaring at Aldon, daring the Truth-Speaker to contest the truth of his words. Another moment, and Aldon smiled – a genuine smile, not mocking or flippant or sarcastic, a rare look for the prickly man.

"He speaks truth," he announced, turning back to the peanut gallery. "I don't suppose there's any of those red bags left, are there?"

Will shot Jessa a panicked glance, and she shrugged, looking every bit as worried. Neal checked his pockets, though he never carried money with him at home, and he didn't need to check to know that Graeme was doing the same. They couldn't make another vault run right now. Neal could probably make an offer, but if he did he would throw off Jessa's auspicious numbering—

A peal of laughter cut into the awkward silence.

"I have yours!" Francesca called out from her seat on the bench, holding up two bags. "I got them early, then told Alex to clean them out to make them panic."

"Fortunate." Aldon tilted his head a little. "Congratulations. You pass my test and, as such, the door is unbarred."

Will bolted for the barracks door, but Tina was already running out, a vision in white lace with a delicate bead and crystal headband, throwing herself at him.

"You're not supposed to kiss until the wedding," Aldon said, but he sounded amused. They were enthusiastically ignoring him, as if they hadn't been together for seven years and living together for four.

"Shut it, Al," Neal suggested, picking himself up from his bench with a bright grin. "Wait until it's _your_ turn for door games."

Will's wedding was perfectly imperfect. The bridal party was horribly unbalanced, Will having all three of his siblings on one side, and Tina with just John and Francesca on the other, with no care for gender at all. The flowers were non-existent in the dead of winter, Queenscove was decked out in Christmas decorations rather than anything specifically for Will and Tina, and someone managed to spill over dinner that Will and Tina had actually filed the marriage paperwork at a courthouse in Switzerland six weeks ago and the ceremony was entirely for show. But the food was good, and his family was here, and everyone was safe and happy, and there was nothing more that Neal could have ever wanted.

XXX

 _ANs: In real life, door games tend to run more embarrassing than not. The door games for my husband involved making him re-enact a scene from the Titanic in a public restaurant, serenading me with "Mamma Mia" and a Harry Potter quiz that he nearly failed. But I felt like the Queenscoves, with their martial background, would take door games (where the groom needs to prove his commitment to the bride before being allowed to see her) to the logical martial extreme. I'd also note that door games are generally considered out of fashion in Mainland China now, but they're still very popular among the diaspora and among Southern Chinese._


	6. Saturday Night

_ANs: Written for FeatheryMinx for the Rigel Black Exchange Round 1. It's not an Alex/Aldon soulmate AU, but it is fun?_

 _Summary:_ _Aldon is too tense, so Alex and Neal take him out._

XXX

Aldon lay on the ground, his face full of snow. It was March, but Queenscove was almost on the Scottish border, and it was still cold this time of the year. He was freezing, and the heat of Alex, sitting on his lower back with his blade pressed against the back of his neck, only made him so much warmer.

"Slow, Aldon," his friend said, getting off him. "I've said it before, but you need to move. You do not have the luxury of slowing down and stopping to line up a shot. You have to shoot on the go, because I am faster than you."

There was a laugh from the benches. "Look at that way he moves, Alex! His shoulders are stiff, and he's got all the flexibility of a two-by-four. He needs to loosen up, that's what he needs."

Aldon got up and glared at his other friend, Neal, who was flopped over on his back on a stone bench, seemingly not worried about the cold. "I am not."

Neal rolled over on his bench and sat up. "Right, Aldon. Just look at yourself—Alex, he moves like a wave, like water. You're jerky, even when you clearly have a plan. Maybe you should get a massage or something."

Aldon made a face.

"Too uptight for that?" Neal grinned. "You should try it. My brother Graeme loves them. Says they're very relaxing."

"I'm not uptight," Aldon said stiffly, brushing himself off, not that there was much he could do when the mud and snow was caked into his clothing. "The fact that I am unwilling to strip down to my underclothes and lay on a table for a man or woman to rub me down does not mean that I am uptight."

"What about sex, then?" Alex said, a small smile dancing on his lips. "Sex is, from experience, an excellent muscle relaxant."

Aldon just glared at him.

"Definitely too uptight for that." Neal laughed in delight. "I can't believe you even suggested it, Alex."

"Many people would have jumped at that barely-veiled offer." Alex shook his head, looking away, mock disappointed. "I am very good in bed. My Hogwarts reputation was not built on nothing. In that case, I have another suggestion."

"I hardly think I need—"

"We're close to Glasgow here, are we not?" Alex interrupted him, looking squarely at Neal.

"About a hundred kilometers to Glasgow, yeah. And to Manchester. A bit farther to Edinburgh, and Liverpool." Neal tilted his head. "Why, what are you thinking?"

"Glasgow. We'll go to Glasgow." Alex smiled, a rare broad smile that showed his canines to full effect. "It's Saturday, and Glasgow has the best nightlife. Go clean up and get your identification. Meet back here as soon as possible."

Neal whooped, bouncing up from his bench with his fist in the air. "Yes! Let's go, let's go!"

Aldon narrowed his eyes at his suspiciously. "Nightlife?" he asked, a little hesitant.

"Nightlife," Alex confirmed. "And let's call this an order. An _order_ , Aldon."

"I'm sure I have work to do," Aldon retorted coldly.

XXX

Much to his disappointment, Christie had nothing for him to do, and there were no outstanding projects that needed his attention. Nothing except the ACD project, but even that was mostly in the hands of Albert McEvoy, the Charms expert, for the moment. He was just thinking about taking the time to do a little magical theory reading of his own, but he erroneously told Christie that if Neal or Alex came calling to tell them he was certainly _not_ going out with them and… Christie thought it would be an excellent idea for him to go out with them.

"You're so young, Aldon," she said with a bright smile, pushing him towards the door and shoving twenty pounds in his hand. "You should be going out, meeting people and having fun right now, not reading books in your room on a Saturday night. Go, go!"

And with that, Christie shut the door in his face.

Aldon sighed, went to the emergency stairwell, and Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. Alex and Neal were already waiting for him in the Queenscove Great Hall, both in Muggle clothing that Aldon had to guess must be fashionable. Alex was in a long-sleeved shirt, dark jeans and a leather jacket, while Neal had opted for a sweatshirt with some sort of lizard with big teeth on it. It was a brisk, if long, walk to the edge of the Queenscove lands, where Alex Side-Along Apparated them to Glasgow.

The city was dark, the streets dirtier than what Aldon was used to in London. The squat, low-lying buildings, only a few floors high, seemed to loom over him. The upper floors were old, classic in design, but were dark with grime. The main floors seemed like a completely separate building, with bright, glowing signs casting coloured reflections on the streets. The language around them was still English, but spoken with such a strong accent that Aldon only caught one word in three.

A large part of him considered Apparating home, but Alex had swung an arm over his shoulders, tugging him forward.

"Last time I was here, I found a great bar," Alex said lightly, Neal on his other side. "Live music, dance floor, and free-flowing drinks."

"All of those sound great to me," Neal replied with a wistful note in his voice. "Almost like being home. Montreal, home, I mean. Without my brothers, but I guess the two of you will have to be close enough."

"The sentiment is appreciated, but considering most of my siblings are dead, you probably don't want to be one of them. Here we are." Alex pushed them towards a door, and Aldon could hear the music blasting through the doors already. A guitar, a little like he had heard John playing at Grimmauld Place, but louder, more aggressive, more static-fueled than anything John had ever played at Grimmauld Place. The sound beat in his chest, pounding, making it difficult to breathe. When Alex opened the door, a wall of noise hit him in the face, and he almost staggered. It was a mess—it sounded like a mess.

Neal grinned. "I like your taste," he said, waltzing into the dimly lit box. "This is pretty awesome."

 _Awesome_ was not the word Aldon would have used as Alex pushed him into the bar. The wood-panelled walls were old, with dust and grime in the cracks between panels, and a brief touch of the bannister beside the three steps leading into the main floor was sticky. His boots seemed to stick to the floor, and if he could hear anything, he bet that he would hear a squeak as he walked, too. He didn't want to touch anything.

"I ordered us three pints!" Neal yelled, two pints in hand as he motioned them to a small, standing table at the edge of the dance floor. Most of the small space, Aldon saw, was in fact a dance floor, and not one that he understood. It was packed, people jumping and shoving each other with enthusiasm, all while the driving beat of the music deafened them. There was none of the order of a proper dance floor, and he couldn't find the beat.

No, that was a lie. He could find the beat easily, because it was pounding in his chest, even if he didn't understand it. There was a method to the madness, Aldon observed, grabbing at the third pint that a server dropped off for them. He needed a drink, even if beer was weak. There was a tune in the music, though the singer just seemed to be screaming into a microphone, and the floor was shaking.

"I'm going in," Alex said, shucking off his jacket and throwing it towards Neal. "Hold my jacket."

"Bossy, isn't he?" Neal yelled over the music, setting the jacket on the table. "If you want to join him, you can—I like a good moshpit myself, but I want a few drinks in me first."

"What's a moshpit?" Aldon took a big drink of his beer. "And what the hell is this _music?_ "

Neal tilted his head, thinking about it for far longer than Aldon thought was really necessary. "The shredding there and that guitar solo is all metal, but based on the lyrics about corruption, I'm going to say punk. And the moshpit is… hmm, most of the dance floor right now. If it's your first one, you'll want to be careful. No one will really hurt you, but the first punch can be a little unexpected."

"Punch?" Aldon grimaced and took another drink of beer. "I do not like being punched."

"Well, you get to hit them back, so it's fine." Neal grinned, raising his own pint to his lips. "I broke my rib in my first moshpit, you know? I was fourteen, and Graeme took both Will and I to a show. Will was like you, all stand-offish and far too good for it. He watched our stuff while Graeme pulled me in. I fell, got trampled a little before someone picked me up. Papa was furious, but Mama laughed it off."

"You miss them," Aldon observed, wondering how Neal even heard him over the music. He could barely hear Neal.

"Of course." Neal looked away, back at the moshpit. "They're my family."

Aldon nodded, though he didn't think he really understood. The closest thing he had had to family was Ed, Ed and Alice, and the two of them had always come with a complicated nest of feelings including his own feelings towards Ed and mixed annoyance, resignation, and friendship towards Alice. He missed them, but in a way, he had put them behind him. He sipped at his pint, thinking, the eddies of loud, furious music flowing around him.

Now, he supposed he had Christie, and he had Neal, and there was Alex. And there was Francesca, over the ocean, even if she still wouldn't talk to him. Having left everything behind, he sometimes thought he had found more, but no one in his new life knew much about his old one. Francesca listened, but she was American; Neal was just Neal, always accepting and moving forward. Alex, he had only befriended in his sixth and seventh years, after he and Ed had stopped having so many classes together and when he was already questioning, and Christie hadn't been in his life at all until he had been disowned. No one had a line connecting to his childhood, and few could even relate to it. Things were different, and there was much that Aldon missed about it.

The music died down, evidently the end of a song, as the lead man on the stage opened a bottle of water and took a swig. Alex melted out of the crowd, panting slightly and covered in sweat, most of it not his own. Aldon never thought he would ever see the dhampir panting, because he always seemed to be fine even after the hardest runs or training sessions. Alex reached for the third pint on the table, throwing it back and finishing all of it in one long drink, gulp after gulp after gulp.

Neal glared at him, eyes narrowing, before he lifted his remaining half-pint and finishing off his beer in the same way. "Was that supposed to be a challenge, Alex?"

"Chugging a half-pint is nothing, Neal," Alex said, setting his glass back down and turning to Aldon. "So?"

"I'm getting another one. Take him out on the floor with you, Alex," Neal ordered, as the music started again. "He's thinking too much, and I want to enjoy myself without watching him stress."

"Will do," Alex said agreeably, turning to Aldon and looking down at his half-pint. "Let's go, man. Chug your beer and in we go."

"I really am not—"

"If you don't go into the pit with me, I'll double your training for the next three days."

Aldon hastily picked up his beer, chugged it, and let Alex drag him into the moshpit.

It was uncomfortable, too warm, in the middle of the pit. The music was even louder, closer to the giant, black boxes, and he could almost see the sound, vibrating in the air over the crowd. There were too many people, surging forward and around him, and it smelled of spilled beer and sour sweat. There was a man, jumping in the centre of the crowd, wearing a wolf mask and howling in tune to the music, bare from the waist up. A woman was shoved into him, falling on him, her hair streaked in pink and purple, but Alex simply grabbed her, keeping her from falling, and pushed her in another direction.

Someone shoved him, and he flailed his arms, reaching for Alex who grabbed him and kept him upright, twisting to body check the other person back onto the crowd. Aldon felt like a billiard ball, being pushed around a table against his will, bouncing off other hard obstacles, completely out of control. People were touching him, sweat dripping on him and ruining his shirt and waistcoat.

"Don't worry," Alex said, panting directly in Aldon's ear. "I got you, and no one in a moshpit is really going to hurt you. Just let yourself go, enjoy yourself."

Aldon had no idea how Alex thought he was supposed to enjoy himself in this—this travesty that called itself dancing.

It was not dancing. Dancing was elegant, and beautiful, and ordered. This was chaotic, a disorganized mess, and there were no orderly steps like in dance. Aldon did not want to feel other people's sweat on him, to feel their hands on him, to smell the scent of alcohol permeating the air or to hear the almost ritualistic chanting swelling around him. It bled into him, rustling in his chest, and he didn't like it.

He didn't like it.

Someone fell into him, and this time Aldon shoved him back. The man let out a whoop, letting himself bounce in a different direction, and all of a sudden, Aldon was in it, a part of one massive, many-armed whole. Someone pushed into him, and he shoved them back, and someone pushed him in a different direction. He was annoyed, and he was angry, and the lead singer on stage was screaming something about government corruption and alienation and being left behind.

Those were sentiments that Aldon could get behind. One song, two songs, and he was in the middle of it, Alex never more than an arm's reach away. A few more songs, and he spotted Neal in the crowd too, an expression of sweaty joy on his face as he leapt on top of the crowd, letting many hands carry him to the front. It was only an instant, before he was distracted by the pounding beat of the music and another person being thrown into him, under whose weight he staggered before pushing them back. Alex was behind him, the entire time, keeping him upright and his feet on the ground.

Alex was behind him, so Aldon let himself go. The music was loud, but it thrummed in his blood, becoming a part of him, and he threw himself back into the pit.

He didn't know how much time passed. Time went by in songs, and it had to have been an hour, maybe two, and when the music finally stopped. The silence, which wasn't true silence, only that after so much noise everything seemed quiet, rang out around him as people slowly found their friends and trickled out, laughing.

Aldon turned around, panting. He didn't want to think about the state of his clothing, yet, or about how his hair was in total disarray, or about how incredibly improper he must look. There was something in the room, something slowly bleeding out of the time and space, something that had happened on the sticky dance floor that he didn't think he could ever explain to anyone. He hadn't been himself, there, but someone else—someone who had been a part of a whole, someone who hadn't cared so much who saw him, or what anyone thought of him. Someone who trusted his gut instincts, who didn't rely so heavily on his thoughts.

"That feeling, there?" Alex said, looking him over with an amused glint in his eye. "That is what I want to see from you in the lists."

Aldon laughed, and he didn't think he had ever heard such a relaxed, carefree noise come from him his entire life.

XXX

 _ANs: Anyone wondering, Neal is wearing a sweatshirt with a dinosaur on it, but Aldon doesn't know what dinosaurs are because no one taught him about the wonder of dinosaurs._


	7. Lords

_ANs: Written for FeatheryMinx and Elsin as part of the Rigel Black Exchange Round 1._

 _Summary:_ _Sirius Black tries to mentor Aldon Rosier. Too bad that, first, Aldon isn't having it, and second, Aldon is absolutely maddening. Half serious, a third awkward formality, and the rest pure revenge._

XXX

The first time Sirius met Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier, he could see that the boy was heading for a rough fall.

He had been there. He, too, had grown up in Dark Society. Sirius knew the stiff etiquette, the whirling glitter of formal galas and warm elegance of garden parties, a place and answer for everything and everyone. For him, as _Sirius Black_ , those rules had been stifling and confining, an unnecessary, inexplicable and frankly _stupid_ limitation on his freedom. But for Regulus, his brother, he knew that those same rules and expectations were a comfort, a structure that provided him with needed support. Aldon, from the way he spoke to the way he dressed, reminded him very much of his brother—this was someone who had always taken Dark Society manners as a soothing backdrop to his life, but unlike Regulus, he wouldn't be able to rely on them forever.

Aldon Rosier was a halfblood, and he was here because he knew it would eventually come out. And he came from a world where blood _meant_ something, and he knew well how much status he would lose when it all came out.

Sirius privately resolved to be there for him, as James had been there for him when he finally up and ran away from the Blacks, at sixteen years old. If Aldon needed a place to stay, he would have one at Grimmauld Place. If he needed guidance to navigate a new way of being, a new identity, then Sirius would be there. If he even just needed comfort, a parental figure, or maybe a little more love than it seemed like his own parents had ever given him, Sirius would find something to give him. He had all the best of intentions.

There was only one thing wrong with that plan: Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier, no matter what mix of names he used, was _maddening as fuck_.

"It's excellent nonetheless, Lord Black," he said, blank-faced, when Sirius made an embarrassed comment about the quality of their dinner, one night when he stayed later than expected to work with Archie's friend Chess on something or other.

"Thank you, Lord Black," he said, perfectly polite, his expression of horror disappearing in an instant as he unwrapped the leather jacket that Sirius and Archie had gotten him for Christmas.

"If you say so, Lord Black," he said agreeably, when Sirius finally decided to give Aldon a thorough rant about how he really did very much want Aldon to call him by name rather by title, that this was a different world than the one in which he had grown up, and that in any case it couldn't be offensive if Sirius _told_ him to call him by name.

It wasn't that Sirius didn't understand. The Rosiers were a Book of Copper family, and even before his disownment, Aldon was considered a minor noble. There were many more Book of Copper nobles than Book of Gold nobles, but in terms of status, no one forgot that the Book of Gold had been noble from the Conquest or before, while Book of Copper had only been ennobled in the 1700s or later. Once he was disowned, the status disparity would have widened, making first name terms unfathomable to the boy.

The fact that he understood didn't make the habit any less frustrating. So, when Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier suddenly found himself as the Lord Rosier, Sirius could hardly help but poke a little bit of fun at it.

"Good morning, Lord Rosier," he said, when Aldon Apparated into Grimmauld Place, intent on speaking to him and Archie about putting together the negotiations. "Do you prefer tea, or coffee?"

Aldon's eyebrow twitched. "Coffee would be wonderful, Lord Black," he said quietly.

"It's important that we get as many people to the bargaining table as possible," he said, a few days later in the middle of yet another argument, "and to that end, Lord Rosier, your cooperation on the location would be much appreciated."

Aldon's lip had twitched, and there was a noise like an uncomfortable cough. "Er, well, Lord Black, I will need other assurances…"

"I agree with the Lord Rosier," he had said at the negotiating table, and unlike the rest without even a hint of sarcasm or mockery. "He makes a good point, regardless of how he does it, and we ought to listen."

Aldon had glared at him, but there was no other reaction—he couldn't show any other reaction, not in front of thirty-odd representatives of other families and groups that were there to negotiate a treaty on Voldemort.

Sirius found a moment to drop the words _Lord Rosier_ into every reasonable, natural-sounding moment he possibly could. He greeted him by title. He dropped the title in casual conversation, both in front of others and outside of it. He even called him by title when referring to him in front of others, as long Aldon was there to hear it. Aldon would crack. He had to.

Aldon held out three days after the negotiations started.

"Lord Black, if I could have a word?" he called out at the end of another day of arguments. "It will not take long, I assure you."

Sirius grinned. He had been waiting for this moment. "By all means, Lord Rosier. Is it something that can be discussed here, or need it be private?"

Aldon shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, the motion somehow amplified by the harness he was wearing. "Privately, I prefer."

James shot him a look, but Sirius waved him off. "Very well. Grimmauld Place?"

Aldon nodded stiffly, turning to walk outside the gates to Apparate. Sirius followed him, letting him into the formal sitting room and shutting the door behind them. "So, Lord Rosier? What is this about?"

"You may feel free to call me by name, Lord Black," Aldon replied, turning sharply on the spot. "Even—even as a noble, I am only in the Book of Copper, and you are my elder. It would be most appropriate for you to call me by name."

Sirius raised an eyebrow.

Aldon gritted his teeth. "Point taken, Sirius. Point taken."

Sirius grinned.

XXX

 _More ANs: This is one of those fics where it gets posted and I come back 2 weeks later and go "I could have done that better, I think." So if I rewrote this, which I might not, I'd probably structure it a little better in three acts? But that isn't happening now, nor do I see it happening in the next few months, so thought I would throw it up anyway for now and take it down later if I decide to come back to it._


	8. Blake

_AN: Written (at least partially) for mercuryandglass for the Rigel Black Exchange Round 1. And also for my own entertainment._

XXX

There are moments that change the course of history, and there are moments that don't. Take one person, for example: one child, one choice, and one decision. In some ways, changing one thing does next to nothing; in other ways, they change quite a lot.

Take Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier: halfblood, Truth-speaker, noble bastard. But let's say that he is Aldon Étienne Blake only, and that he never grew up in the house on the hill.

A revolution still happens, and Aldon Blake is still in the middle of it. And some things happen exactly the same as they did—but others don't.

XXX

"I can't do it, Lina," Christie says, pacing the living room of her beautiful penthouse apartment. She has Aldon Étienne Blake in her arms, only a few days old, and he is red and tiny and he cries like there is no tomorrow. He has a full head of black hair already, and the few glimpses she has had of his eyes show they are the same bright gold as his father's. He's going to look just like his father in miniature, which makes the ruse perfect, but he came from _her_ , and he cries for _her_ , and she can't do it. "I know I said I would, and I know you've spent the last six months under virtual house arrest because of it, but I just can't do it. I—he's perfect, and I can't give him up."

Eveline Rosier, formerly Eveline Avery, more preferably Lina Avery, tilts her head and eyes the infant with a slight wrinkle of distaste. Despite her expression, Christie knows that if anyone is able to help her, it is this woman in front of her. "All right," she says, her voice perfectly calm. "That certainly makes things complicated. Sit down, you're making me dizzy. I'm not going to force you to give up your baby, so let's talk about this."

Christie sits, in the plush burgundy armchair she spent half her pregnancy in, which still has stacks of books beside her. Mysteries and thrillers, the exact genre that she and Evan love. "I'm sitting."

"I can see that." Lina is silent for a moment, thinking, her eyes tilted upwards. Christie is good at many things, but Lina has a grasp of people, of politics, of strategy that Christie never had. "My last six months, we can say that I had a stillbirth, very traumatic, and I'll go off on a recovery vacation to France. That isn't an issue. But you're going to have a son that looks like the Lord Evan Rosier, and anyone who sees him is going to know it. You can't hide a child away, not in London, not when you work at the Rosier Investment Trust. You'll have to quit your job, move away, find work elsewhere—you won't be able to see Evan anywhere near as much, if at all. I might be able to talk Evan into some support payments, but it'll be complicated, and I don't know. Your standard of living will change. It'll be hard, Christie."

Christie swallows, looking around at her home. She hasn't lived here long—Evan bought it for her, when she told him she was pregnant. Evan loves her, and she knows he would love his child, but things are hard for him. He is the pureblood Lord Rosier, and she is a Muggleborn nobody who works in his company. A fifteen-year relationship means nothing in light of who they are, to the world that exists between their statuses. "Hard is—hard is fine. As long as I have my baby, I can—I'll be fine."

The other woman nods, the briefest flicker of a smile coming across her lips as she pulls herself up, off the sofa she was lounging in. "I'll talk to Evan, then. If you want my thoughts, Christie..."

"Hmm?"

"I think you made the right choice. God knows, I would have made an awful mother."

XXX

Lina lets herself into Rosier Place. If she were the sort of woman who felt dread, then she would have dreaded this conversation, but dread was in the part of herself that died when she became a Stormwing. There's little in the world that causes her fear, and Lord Evan Rosier is decidedly not any of them.

He's in his parlour, worrying himself pacing in circles. Christie was supposed to be here today, her babe in arms, and she wasn't, which was why Lina went to speak to her. Evan is convinced that something dire has happened, and maybe, from his perspective, something dire _has_ happened. Christie doesn't want to give her baby up, and Christie is a million times warmer than either her or Evan, so she can't really begrudge the woman.

"She said no, Evan," Lina says, taking a seat without an invitation. She has been in this ruse for only a few years, but she and Evan have a camaraderie of sorts, a partnership that isn't romantic, that isn't a marriage, but is something just as strong. He'll never be Étienne, but he is her best friend alive. "Christie and Aldon are fine, but she's decided that she can't give him up. She wants to raise him with her."

Evan pales, stopping in his tracks. "But if he's raised with her, he'll be a known halfblood."

Lina shrugs. Evan isn't wrong, but she is less concerned about it. Aldon _is_ a halfblood, and no palace of lies can change that.

"His life—the laws…" Evan draws a breath, lets it out slowly, then he walks the sofa across from her and drops into it, running one hand through loose black hair. "I can't protect him, not if he's going to be a known halfblood. The Wizengamot is talking about the employment restrictions now, and I can't tell how broad they'll be. There's pressure on the Hogwarts Board of Governors to ban halfbloods from Hogwarts. I don't want that for my son, Eveline, and I can't stop the laws from passing. And the business—"

"The conservatives will pull out of Rosier Investment Trust over it," Lina finishes for him, leaning back. She's heard it all before, his justifications for their fake marriage, for hiding his long and faithful relationship with Christina Blake, a rising star at the Rosier Investment Trust. She doesn't always approve of his choices, but she can't deny that his ruse has provided her, a third party, with quite a lot of benefits. "I'm not going to insist that Christie give her baby up, Evan. What about Lord Potter? He's engaged to marry a Muggleborn. It was announced two weeks ago in Daily Prophet."

Evan glares at her, hawk-like eyes sharp. "Lord James Potter is of the Book of Gold, and his family seat is _Peverell Hall_. In terms of family wealth, he's far better off than we are, and his income isn't dependent on the goodwill of others. He may do as he pleases but we, as a Book of Copper business family, cannot. And in case you've forgotten, Eveline, _we_ are married in the eyes of the public."

Lina shrugs again. She's heard that before, too. "You can always divorce me. Use infidelity, or mental cruelty, or the good old refused-to-perform-her-wifely-duties loophole. Then marry Christie, formally adopt your own son, not that anyone will doubt that he is your son with his looks, and you have your family with you."

Evan blanches, crosses his arms over his chest. "The scandal—it's impossible, Eveline, and the second they see him, they'll know that our marriage, and our excuse for the divorce, was a sham."

"I'm fairly certain that Aldon is clear and convincing evidence of infidelity, actually." Lina laughs, low and amused. "I don't think that'll be so evident. You have an affair with Christie during our marriage, the two of us are pregnant at the same time, I have a stillbirth but she gives you a son. I'm not seeing where the sham comes in at all."

"They will _vilify_ us," Evan retorts flatly, waving a hand. "Not only the conservatives would pull their investments then. And how would that leave you? You had your own reasons for our marriage."

Lina pauses. That part is true, but a few years in, she finds it less important. Being with Evan, shielding him and Christie and now Aldon, that's given her a place she belongs in Britain; a family of her own, even if it isn't a traditional one. She lost Étienne, so she had come home to the Averys, only to be pushed to take roles that she didn't want, for which she would never be suitable. Lina had never wanted a husband, and she didn't want to be a mother, but she did value family.

That wouldn't change just because she wasn't Evan's wife. She has never been Evan's wife, and their bonds of family have always been different. Lina has no doubt that their close relationships will continue, whether or not she is Evan's supposed wife.

"Don't worry about me, Evan," she says finally. "Divorce is its own marker in our lovely society. I'd make my own way, and you know it. I think you'd have little choice, anyway—if you don't bring Christie and Aldon into the open, then you'll either need to get yourself an heir, or find more excuses as to why you don't have an heir, since I'm not giving you one. My stillbirth was very traumatizing, by the way. I must now go to the south of France to recover in the sun. At least six months of recovery. I'll pay off Healer Braggs to say so, then hex him to keep his mouth shut."

Evan snorts, no doubt having trouble with the concept of her and trauma in the same sentence. If only he knew. "That will buy us a few years, at least." He stops, and sighs. "Then what, I don't know. I can't… Christie is the love of my life, Eveline."

Lina watches him as he puts his head in his hands. Privately, she thinks that he should divorce her, marry Christie, and take what comes, but she doubts that will be the choice he makes. Evan Rosier ties his self-worth to his wealth, his power, and his status, and he can't believe in a world where he could lose all those things and still be worth loving. And he _will_ lose half or more of his business if it comes out that he has a Muggleborn mistress, a son by a Muggleborn mistress, and if he casts off his pureblood, noble wife for her.

"We'll deal with the heir issue as it comes," Evan decides finally. "Christie… she'll have to leave the Trust, and I can't risk being seen too closely with her, or with Aldon. Would you…?"

He doesn't finish the sentence. Lina tilts her head. "Would I _what_ , Evan?"

"Look after them. Whatever happens, I want them looked after. Whether we're married or not, whatever comes. Just look after them." Evan's hawk-like eyes are pleading, as if he knows what the future holds, but he doesn't. No one does. He only knows that the world is getting more dangerous for people of less than pure blood, including his son and the woman he loves. "You and your… skills."

Lina snorts, but finds herself agreeing anyway. It's not Aldon's fault that his father is a bit of a coward, and his mother is too soft, or that they've brought him into an insane world that will set up a thousand barricades to say that he isn't good enough. He'll at least have her, and maybe she can teach him enough to break through them all.

Christie moves to a tiny townhouse in Manchester, in a blue-collar, middle-class neighbourhood, a month-old baby in tow. Her resignation from the Rosier Investment Trust is barely noticed. Evan pays support, a respectable amount that Christie scrimps and saves for seed money for her own business while working by day as a receptionist in a Muggle car rental agency and paying exorbitant daycare prices.

Lina takes longer, more difficult contracts abroad. In time, she and Evan do divorce, a scandal that rocks Wizarding Britain in 1980 as he pins it on her and her refusal to produce an heir for him. Lina doesn't even deny it, admitting quite happily that everything he says is true, and the courts can't help but grant it. The money that Evan is able to send without being noticed only covers the basics, but there are certain other expenses that need be paid, and Lina just can't keep up the ruse of being Lady Rosier while finishing mercenary contracts to pay for it all. Aldon needs a very quiet noble etiquette tutor, the best duelling instructor that money can buy, and tuition fees for one of the major schools abroad. It's not what he would have gotten if he were the acknowledged Rosier Heir, if Christie had given him up, but it's something. And he gets something else for it, too.

He gets love. Every time Lina has time, a few weeks between contracts, she drops into Christie's cozy townhouse in Manchester. There isn't much space, especially not compared to the massive Rosier Place, but Aldon is a warm, sweet child, always chattering about something on the Muggle telly. He loves Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighbourhood, and while Lina thinks both shows are teaching him to be far too soft, he is happy, and he calls her Auntie Lina.

She supposes she can wait to break the news of the world to him.

XXX

Aldon is five, and he goes to school. School isn't that much of a change for him, because it's just a bigger version of daycare, and he already knows how to read. He tells his classmates that he's a wizard, and that's okay. Robbie who sits beside him is a dragon, and Emily is a unicorn. He hates the jumper, and the tie, but he likes that Mum is working more from home, now. She doesn't need to work at that place that smells like fake leather and oil anymore, and she has more time for him too.

But Auntie Lina says that he needs other lessons, lessons that aren't like the ones at school, lessons that she makes him promise never, _ever_ to talk about at school. These lessons are boring, all about Lords and Ladies and how to bow and how to talk and who is related to whom. He might only be five, but he doesn't know any of these people. He doesn't see how they're important at all, and he hates spending his evenings and weekends studying with stern Master Shafiq when he could be playing football outside with his friends.

He makes the mistake of complaining about it, one day.

"I don't want to study noble etiquette," he says, when Mum rouses him out of bed on a Saturday morning. "It's _boring_. I want to go play with Robbie."

Mum looks at him for a bit, and then she wraps him in a hug. "I'm sorry, Aldon," she replies, and from her voice, Aldon really does think she is sorry. "But this is important, sweetheart. Go to your lesson, Master Shafiq won't wait forever, and I'll talk to Auntie Lina, okay? You can play football with Robbie after your lessons."

He sighs, the huge sigh of a world-weary five-year-old. "Okay, Mum."

"You'll be good for Master Shafiq, won't you?"

Aldon nods, pouting, but he goes to his lessons with good grace.

Three weeks later, Mum and Auntie Lina sit him down between them, and Auntie Lina explains some facts about the world to him. Aldon isn't just Aldon Blake, and his family isn't just his Mum and Auntie Lina. He has a dad, who just isn't part of his life, and his dad is Lord Evan Rosier, a Book of Copper noble in Wizarding Britain. Master Shafiq has made him study the Rosiers in close detail, the Rosiers and their many family members, and they are his dad, his cousins, his family too. But he isn't really one of them, because his Mum wasn't married to his dad.

"Why didn't you marry him after, then?" he asks, frowning. It seems like such an easy solution to him, because Master Shafiq has taught him enough to know that his dad isn't married. And if they married, they could be a family. "Or you could marry him now!"

Mum and Auntie Lina exchange a glance. Mum has a sad, worried look on his face, while Auntie Lina is serious.

"Étienne," Auntie Lina says, because she always calls him by his second name, not his first, not that he knows why. "I'm going to explain something about the world to you, all right? It's not a nice thing, and it's not an easy thing, but it's something you need to know."

Aldon nods, waiting. He's very smart, for a five-year-old. His teachers tell him so all the time. They want to accelerate him through his studies, but his Mum says it's better for him to stick to the kids his own age.

"In our world, there are witches and wizards, like you and I and your mum." Auntie Lina pauses, waiting for Aldon to nod again, to show that he was following. "And there are people who don't have magic like we do, who are Muggles, like your friends at school. Our world, the world of witches and wizards and magic, is secret from the Muggle one, and most of us don't have much to do with the Muggle world. Within our world, the magical one, there are some witches and wizards who are what we call _pureblood_ , who have magic from all four of our grandparents, like me. And there are witches and wizards that we call Muggleborn, who were born into entirely Muggle families and didn't know about magic until they went to school, like your mum. And then there are wizards like you, who are in-between, who have less than four magic-using grandparents but grow up in magic, who are halfbloods."

"So?" Aldon frowns, putting the pieces together. He understands it, and he has a bit of a foreboding feeling. Master Shafiq has already taught him about the Sacred Twenty-Eight, twenty-eight families who had been deemed to be pureblooded, a position of high prestige.

The Rosiers had been on it, he remembers. The Rosiers had made it on that most prestigious list of all pureblood families. And his dad is a Rosier, but he is not a Rosier, and he is not a pureblood. Because he is not a pureblood?

"In the magical world, being a pureblood is very important," Auntie Lina continues, her voice final. "Your dad is a pureblood, and your mum is a Muggleborn. They couldn't marry, but they had you anyway. And you're a halfblood, but you're still the blood heir to the Rosiers. You need to know the things that Master Shafiq is teaching you for when you take the title, so you have to study hard. Do you understand?"

Aldon doesn't, but he tries. He nods, accepting that even if he doesn't really understand yet, that his lessons are important. "But can I join the football league? Robbie is in the football league. I want to play more football. I promise I'll study hard if I can join the football league."

Auntie Lina looks over at Mum, a bemused look on her face, but Mum smiles. "If Auntie Lina says it's okay, then I'll register you tomorrow."

Auntie Lina tilts her head slightly, thinking about it, but eventually she smiles too. "Why not? It's good exercise. And being in shape would be good for you too."

Aldon beams, because playing football is far more important to him than boring noble history and etiquette lessons.

XXX

Aldon is eight years old when he first picks up a wand. It's earlier than most, and they go to Ollivanders in Diagon Alley, the beating heart of Wizarding London, to get it. He has to put on robes for it, and somehow putting on robes feels like adding insult to injury.

He does understand more about the world now, about the gap he spans between the Muggle world and the magical one. He has never met his father, but he understands very well that even if his father pays support, the Lord Evan Rosier threw him and his mother away because of their blood statuses. He even understands that his father threw Aunt Lina away, because Aunt Lina is asexual and isn't interested in anyone that way, and she wouldn't give him a legal heir.

Mum and Aunt Lina make excuses for him and tell him it's a little more complicated than that. He can accept that his father and Aunt Lina got married for reasons entirely their own and that it was never a real marriage, but he gets stuck on one single point: at the end of the day, no matter how much his father might have loved his Mum, she wasn't good enough for him. He and his mum, with their halfblood and Muggleborn blood-statuses, are not good enough for his father to acknowledge openly, and they receive very little from him compared to the vast Rosier wealth.

He is eight years old, and he already burns with the injustice of it.

He hates walking down Diagon Alley, in robes a little too big for him (he wears robes so rarely that Aunt Lina only gets him a set every few years), because people stare at him, and his mum, and Aunt Lina. They know who he is, or at least they have a very good idea, because he is his father in miniature: black hair, golden-orange eyes, a delicate, almost exotic nose and chin. He wishes he took more after his Mum, the one parent who was actually there for him, but all he has from her family is his size. He's already small for his age, and he beat up Eric at school for picking on him for it. For that, and for having ugly eyes and what he called a stupid name.

Mum was upset, but Aunt Lina thought he showed good initiative and drive, which was why she had decreed that it was time for Aldon to start duelling lessons. Eric had a good stone on him, but Aldon was faster, and he packed a meaner punch—with a wand and duelling instruction, Aunt Lina thought he would learn some discipline.

The bells above the wand shop jingle when they enter, a discreet door labelled _Ollivanders, Est. 323 BC._ Aldon has serious questions about those numbers, because even if Master Shafiq says that Ollivander is one of the oldest magical families in Britain, 323 BC stretches to the pre-Roman era, far before invasions of the Angles and the Saxons, let alone the Norman French. 323 BC is _Celtic_ Britain, and Ollivander is not a Celtic name. It's an obvious lie, and his magical core wrenches a little in discomfort.

But he keeps his thoughts to himself as he and his Aunt Lina enter the shop.

"Hello. Rare that I see any young'uns at this time of the year." An old man appears from the back storeroom, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth. His light, gold-flecked eyes linger on Aunt Lina and on Aldon for a minute. "Mistress Ducharme, Master…?"

"Blake," Aunt Lina finishes easily, one arm around Aldon's shoulders. "We're looking to get his first wand."

The old man hesitates, his eyes flicking back to Aunt Lina. "I understood your…"

He lets the words trail off in the air curiously, and Aunt Lina rolls her eyes. "Divorce, Ollivander. You can say the word. And he's not my son, as you should be able to tell by his name. Wands?"

Ollivander hesitates, and Aldon scowls, shoving his hands into his uncomfortable robe pockets. He loves Aunt Lina, but he wishes Mum were with him. Aunt Lina has an abrasive way about her, which always puts others on the defensive, but Mum is soft, soothing while being convincing.

"He doesn't appear to be eleven years old, yet?" Ollivander says, voice delicate. "As you know, Mistress Ducharme, in general children are not permitted wands until they are preparing to go to school…"

"Cut the crap, Ollivander." Aunt Lina places one hand on the rickety desk between them. "We both know that you bend the rules for nobles, and that every child from a prominent or noble pureblood family will have a wand in their hands and basic spell-casting tutors by the time they are nine."

"Yes, but…" Ollivander releases a breath slowly. "It is difficult to deny nobles, or those from prominent families, but it is the law."

"Aldon _is_ a noble, as you've no doubt guessed," Lina retorts, voice sharp. "A blood noble."

"A bastard." The old man's eyes flicker to Aldon, apologetic, but Aldon doesn't accept the apology. He scowls back. He hates the word. _Bastard_. Just like _halfblood,_ it's one of the words used to tell him that he isn't good enough.

"So?" Aunt Lina shrugs. "He's a noble, and so am I. His background isn't his fault, and why should he have to wait for a wand when every noble child will have one in hand before they are nine? He needs it more than they do, as a halfblood noble bastard. Maybe you should sell your wands based on who _needs_ them, not on who clamours more, Ollivander."

"And yet, it is nobles and the prominent families that are likeliest to put me out of business." The man sighs, but he turns around and starts ruffling through the boxes at the back of the store, bringing out a selection of a dozen boxes. "Let's start with hawthorn, then. Hawthorn and dragon heartstring?"

Aldon tries it, but nothing happens. He knows it isn't a fit, so he moves on. It is interesting, how different wands respond to him. There is one wand, with applewood and unicorn hair, that practically leaps out of his hand the second he touches it, and another made from elm that visibly shudders when he reaches for it. He doesn't even bother with that one.

He knows the right wand immediately when he picks it up. There's a heat that runs through the wood, rumbling against his magic, almost like purring, and the second he waves it, a golden shower of sparks appears. It's _his_ wand, and it feels like a part of him already.

"Blackthorn and dragon heartstring," Ollivander mutters, eyeing Aldon with a new respect, or maybe it is apprehension, or even fear. "A fighter, that one."

Aunt Lina smirks. "In this world, he has to be."

He meets his duelling instructor a week later. Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody is terrifying, an old Stormwing famed for losing one of his eyes in combat, and having replaced it with a magic, electric blue eye that spins wildly in its socket, seeing everything. Moody doesn't seem to care what anyone thinks of him, which Aldon begins to suspect is probably a general Stormwing trait, and he puts Aldon through his paces. Aldon's slight build and years of Muggle football mean that he is fast, with quick footwork and better stamina, and he picks up duelling easily. His style is built on dodging, sheer speed, and quick and brutal retaliation.

XXX

Aldon Blake never goes to Hogwarts. The Hogwarts Board of Governors passes a resolution against admitting anyone with less than four magical grandparents in 1981, and he does not have four magical grandparents in his family tree. Instead, on September 1, 1988, he hugs Mum and Aunt Lina goodbye and boards a plane at Terminal M at Heathrow International Airport.

Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is his destination. It's the oldest school in Wizarding America, it has the strongest programs internationally for magical theory, runes and alchemy. It's also where Mum went, so that's where he'll go.

He finds his seat easily. It's 29G and he slips into the window seat. He has only rarely been to London, so he stares out onto the tarmac, watching the other planes go by.

"Hey," someone says beside him, and Aldon looks up. The boy is a little taller than him, but gangly, and he looks nervous. His accent is Scottish, and he has a sprinkling of freckles across his nose. "Is this seat taken?"

Aldon lets out a small laugh. "They're all taken. We have seat numbers on our tickets, if you didn't notice."

"Oh," the boy says, looking a little sheepish. "Well, I mean, my ticket says I sit here. 29F. I was trying to be polite before I just, you know, sat down. Tobias McLean."

"Aldon Blake," Aldon replies, extracting his hand from his bag and reaching out to shake. "Ilvermorny, first-year. You?"

"Same." Tobias grins, sitting down. "So, are you excited? I am! My family's all non-magical, you know, and I never knew the weird things I could do were magic until the woman from the ICW showed up! I mean, it sucks that I can't stay close to home, they say that the British school is right in Scotland, but they don't accept people from non-magic backgrounds, I guess."

"They don't," Aldon replies, frowning in strong disapproval. He doesn't care about not going to Hogwarts, it's just one school among many, but he does care that he and every halfblood or Muggleborn is basically being kicked out of country to school elsewhere. They aren't welcome in their own homeland, that tells him, but he isn't sure he should be throwing that out at this boy before they've even left the ground. "It's fine, though, Ilvermorny is a great school. My mum went there. She's like you, from a non-magical family, so I can't go to Hogwarts either. I'm half, they say."

"Kind of sucks though, doesn't it?" Toby sighs, leaning his head against the seat in front of him. "I mean, there are a lot of schools, but it's so far away. Can we even follow football in America? I hear American football is weird."

"The magical world has its own sports, so probably not," Aldon admits with a grimace. "I'm not looking forward to that part, either. Manchester United is going to win this year."

The other boy snorts. "Man U? No way. English Premier League, it's going to Arsenal. You from Manchester?"

"Yeah," Aldon says, jumping to the defense of his beloved team. "Man U was _second_ in the league last year, Tobias, and their roster this year is amazing. They're _going_ to win it."

"Sure, Aldon." Tobias laughs. "But Arsenal is on a streak, so I don't think they'll overcome it. My team is Celtic FC. I'm from Glasgow. And call me Toby."

"The Celtics are good," Aldon offers, settling down a little, like a bird whose feathers were ruffled. "The Celtics are the best team in the Scottish League."

"They are, aren't they?" Tobias grins broadly, and the beginning of a friendship are formed. They chatter over football half the journey, until Toby falls asleep on Aldon's shoulder and Aldon, tired from an early morning Portkey into London from Manchester and a last breakfast in London with Mum and Aunt Lina, falls asleep too.

Ilvermorny is a huge castle, bigger than anything Aldon has ever seen before. The first-years are divided into groups, fifteen to twenty each, and given tours of the grounds until the Sorting Ceremony, an expansive event in the grand Atrium which opens onto six huge balconies above. Only the first years, the professors, and the dozens of prefects are allowed on the first floor; the remaining eight hundred or so students crowd the balconies of the floors above, watching the traditional Choice.

Aldon stares out from a crowd of a hundred and twenty first years. There are four statues, one in each corner of the room, and the floor is dominated by a huge Gordian knot, the same symbol that decorates Aldon's new navy blue school robes, his cranberry jumper and blue-and-cranberry striped tie. It's the symbol of Ilvermorny, one of the most democratic and least elitist schools in the world, just as one would expect of a school founded in the union between a mage and a Muggle.

Aldon's eyes flicker to the four statues in the corners, and Toby is beside him, uncharacteristically silent. There's the House of Horned Serpent, the home of scholars, where his mother once resided, and there's Pukwudgie, the house of Healers. There's Thunderbird, the home of the wanderers, and Wampus, the panther, the house of warriors. The school always gives the students a choice of at least two Houses, and Aldon hopes fervently that at least one of his choices will be either Horned Serpent or Wampus. He's enough like his mother that being in Horned Serpent appeals to him, but he's angry, carrying on his shoulders a deep-seated rage at the world, so he thinks Wampus might be a better fit. He carries a wand of blackthorn and dragon heartstring, he has three years of duelling instruction from Stormwing Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody under his belt already, and he's a fighter.

Toby, standing beside him, is nervous, shifting his feet, but Aldon doesn't worry. He is Aldon Étienne Blake, bastard, blood noble, halfblood, and the Gordian knot at the centre of the Atrium does not frighten him.

With a name starting with a _B_ , Aldon is called early, so he pats his new friend on the shoulder and steps out into the middle of the floor. Each statue has its own sign for acceptance: the Horned Serpent glows from a stone on its forehead, the Thunderbird beats its great wings, the Wampus roars, and the Pukwudgie raises its arrow into the air. Aldon reaches the centre of the knot, and he waits, a single drop of silence.

And the Wampus roars, and the Horned Serpent's jewel glows. It is his choice now, and without hesitation, he makes it.

"Wampus House, please," he says, British accent marking him as one of Ilvermorny's many British halfblood and Muggleborn students. Ilvermorny takes them all, every Muggleborn and halfblood who can't afford to go elsewhere, a robust financial aid system covering the ones who can't pay the fees. Nearly a tenth of the school is British. But Aldon is different, a blood _noble_ , and he already plans on setting the world on fire.

Toby chooses to join him in Wampus House, not even an hour later, and the two of them become fast friends. They room together in the huge, almost stable-like Wampus dormitories, they join the Ilvermorny British Students Association together, and Toby becomes the first year rep. Aldon, in return, forces his new friend to join Duelling Club with him.

Saiorse Riordan, Irish, traditional Celtic caster and future High Priestess of the Tuatha Dé, joins them the next year. They become a threesome as strong as any other.

XXX

Aldon discovers his gift at the end of the second year. He's always had traces of it, here and there, but it was never reliable, just a sixth sense that made him uncomfortable when someone lied near him. He wakes up on his birthday, his core brimming with magic he isn't used to carrying yet, and he knows things are different. Things are sharper, somehow, and he calls out three people for lying that morning.

"Christ, Al, _chill_ ," Toby says, one eyebrow raised. "I know it's your thirteenth birthday, but you're _prickly_ today. Did you really need to ream out that sixth-year for cheating on his girlfriend? And in the middle of the dining hall, too."

"He can come at me later," Aldon scoffs, and he yawns. Toby had his birthday a few months ago, so he must know the feeling, but new magic and new gifts are _exhausting_. Aldon feels like his brain has processed three computers' worth of data already, and it isn't even noon. "I couldn't just sit there and let him spew all those lies out to Marjorie, could I? It's his fault for seeing Flora behind her back!"

"He's going to get a crowd of his friends together and come after you," Toby predicts darkly. "I don't care _how_ good you are at duelling, he's going to kill you. Goodbye, Aldon. It was good knowing you."

"I'll save you." Saoirse looks up from her lunch, a grilled cheese sandwich that she's dipping into a bowl of tomato soup. "Don't worry, Al. I got your back."

Toby glares at her. "You're a _first-year_ , Saiorse. You're going to die, too. Why am I the only one with any sense around here?"

From Ilvermorny, it's easy for Aldon to discover everything there is to know about his gift. He is at the strongest school for magical theory in the world, and every reference book he needs is at his fingertips. He doesn't have much time before the summer holidays, so he crams in as much as he can, finds the best reference book, and convinces Ilvermorny's librarian to let him have it for the summer. Even that doesn't say much, but it tells him all he needs to know.

He is a Truth-Speaker, one of the Chosen of the Incarnation of Justice. In the past, Incarnations were worshipped as gods, or something like gods; the modern explanation is that Incarnations are the physical embodiment of a _concept_ , something that so many people believe in that it takes on a life of its own. They are extremely powerful in their domains, but often their powers are constrained in other ways.

As a Truth-Speaker, Aldon is a living lie detector. It is a very tightly constrained type of Legilimency, and as long as the person intends on deception, he can read the lie. Occlumency doesn't work on him, not for lies, even if he doesn't have the broader Natural Leglimency talent which would let him follow others' surface thoughts. He can also summon the Incarnation of Justice, if given access to an old-style courtroom with the prescribed runic circles. Many of the oldest courthouses have at least one summoning circle carved into one of their primary courtrooms, though they are very rarely used. Even in Wizarding America, they were used only for mass terrorism cases, and the last trial by Justice that had been attempted was in 1926, for the capture of Gellert Grindelwald. Grindelwald had escaped before the end of his trial, ending the whole affair, but the Americans had tried. Aldon knows, from the records kept in America, that summoning Justice requires possession of the Truth-Speaker, and he hopes fervently that he'll never be called upon to do it.

It seems unlikely. Even in Wizarding Britain, the last recorded summoning of Justice was in the fifteenth century, so if Aldon is lucky, the British have completely forgotten the gift exists. That seems to be the case, anyway; Master Shafiq, his noble etiquette tutor from before he went to school, had said off-hand a few times that only pureblood families carried unique magical gifts. Truth-Speakers have only ever been halfbloods, and the gift was not one that carried beyond a generation.

Aldon learns, over the next few months and years, that he is exceptionally powerful even for a Truth-Speaker. If he concentrates, he can differentiate the different types of lies: some people, like his mother, only lie because they want to please others, or they don't want to hurt others. Other people lie with no regrets, and still others don't lie outright, but twist the truth in other ways. Aldon can read them all, and he find the skill exceedingly useful.

For his third year, he starts shifting his studies towards Runes and Magical Theory; Magical Theory for himself, because he is interested in it, and Runes because Aunt Lina and Master Moody think it useful. Runes are a fully-fledged system of their own, a magical system that doesn't rely on a thin stick of wood, and so many mages are dependent on their wands. It is useful to have a working knowledge of a secondary casting method, just in case he doesn't have his wand close to hand, one day.

In any case, as he learns the next year, Ilvermorny is famous on the Triwizard Tournament for their dual-casting mages. Their team members, including Aldon's own Duelling Captain, Graeme Queenscove, are all proficient in at least two methods of spell-casting, and in Graeme's case, three. They're fast, clever, and brutal.

Aldon loves it. He loves the entire thing, from the solemn Ilvermorny Ceremonies in the autumn, when they send the candidates out into the Appalachian wilderness for a night, stripped of everything except their clothes and their wands, and tell them that the last four standing at the top of Mount Greylock at dawn will be the team, with full authority to select their own supports. He loves the matches, both the pool rounds and the eliminations, and he watches every single game in the grand Ilvermorny Atrium with most of the school. Graeme is their star player, leading Ilvermorny through three resounding victories in the pools, even against his own brother on the Collège team, and they pull victories against Beauxbatons in the quarter-final and Castelbruxo in the semi-finals, facing off against the legendary National Magic School of China in the finals. They lose, but just _barely_ , and Aldon cheers and cries for Ilvermorny as much as he does for Man U.

Toby and Saoirse laugh at him, a little, but Aldon has a new goal, by the end of it.

"We have to get on the team, next time," he pants, swinging one arm around Toby's shoulders, and the other around Saoirse's. "The Triwizard Cup—it'll be ours. _Ours_. Get training, both of you. You have three and a half years."

Toby makes a face. "How about I leave that to the two of you, and just become your strategist? I'm shit on the Duelling circuit, Al, and you know it."

"That'll work too." Aldon grins. "Saoirse?"

"I'm in," the girl says, her smile bright as she slips an arm around Aldon's waist. "1995, we'll be the Ilvermorny Triwizard team, Aldon. We'll show the world what we can do."

"I knew I could count on you."

XXX

Before Aldon is a seventh year, before the pivotal 1994-1995 Triwizard Tournament, many things happen. He opts for a Mastery in Magical Theory, with a minor concentration in Runes, and nearly all his classes outside the basic five become either Runes or Magical Theory related. Where he has an open timeslot, he takes another Duelling or Defense class, but he doesn't worry too much about those because, with Master Moody instructing him over the summers and the Duelling Club every year, he's easily on par with everyone in the Defense Mastery programs.

His training goes beyond what is merely in Duelling, however. The duelling circuit has rules, particularly involving exclusive wand magic and no physical methods, and Master Moody sees to it that Aldon receives training on rune use in duelling and quite a lot of other self-defence. Aldon has always been able to throw a punch, and he's gotten into more than one scrap over the years, but Moody teaches him how to do it better. And when he is fourteen, Moody hands him a gun.

Aldon likes his gun. He understands that it's not something that he can pull out whenever, and it is a great responsibility, but he likes the weight of it in his left hand. He likes the precision involved in shooting, especially if he's shooting in a fight, and he likes how _instinctual_ his timing has to be. He just has to know, because there is no time to think in a fight.

On the duelling circuit, he does well—very well. But his fourth year is when he meets his _nemesis_ , his _archrival_ on the duelling circuit, the first year they both make the top sixteen.

His name is Nealan Queenscove. He's at the American Institute of Magic, and he has light brown hair, green eyes, and half a head on Aldon. Normally, Aldon thinks he would be slow, or at least slower than Aldon, but he's not – as a Queenscove, Aldon has no doubt that he has the same martial training as his elder brother Graeme. He's brutally fast, almost as fast as Aldon is but with a stronger core, and Nealan Queenscove makes the top eight on the duelling circuit in their fourth year when he eliminates Aldon Blake from the competition.

It's a fluke, Aldon thinks, stewing over it for half the year, but he slams into Nealan Queenscove _again_ on the duelling circuit in his fifth year. Top sixteen again, and again they face off for the top eight. And again, Aldon is eliminated.

"Tough luck," Queenscove says to him with a smile, when they shake hands. Queenscove looks to be an eminently friendly boy, and Aldon is usually friendly as well, but Aldon has never taken losing well. "But it was a good match! You almost had me, when you threw out that non-verbal _Stupefy_."

"Next year," Aldon retorts with a scowl. "You wait for _next year,_ Queenscove. I'll have you next year!"

The boy laughs, delighted. "See you again next year, then."

That next year is without a doubt the worst year. It's their last year on the circuit, both of them, because next year is the Triwizard Tournament, and all the major competitions across the North American League are shut down for the Tournament. By now, both Aldon Blake and Nealan Queenscove are major names on the circuit. Aldon has been nominated Duelling Captain for Ilvermorny's forty-strong Duelling brigade, while Queenscove seems to have forgone the captaincy in favour of a firecracker of a girl two years younger than him, Keladry Mindelan, who is starting to turn the Duelling world upside down.

This time, both Aldon and Queenscove make the top sixteen, and then they make the top eight. And then they both make the semi-finals, and Queenscove…

Queenscove loses to Keladry Mindelan, and Aldon, in a shocking upset, loses against a seventh year from Cascadia that he's beat at least once before. And he doesn't even have time to be upset about it, because he's heading straight into the third-place match against Queenscove.

The other boy grins at him against the duelling ring. "Good to see you again," he says, a sparkle of mischief in his eyes.

Aldon scowls. He shouldn't have lost the last match. He's angry at himself for losing, but he's also been trained too well by Master Moody and Aunt Lina, so he sets aside his upset for the moment. Toby has a recording orb, so Aldon can view his performance later and figure out what went wrong. "Let's just get this done, Queenscove."

"But banter is three quarters of the fun!" Queenscove complains, but the warning whistle blows, telling them to take their positions. Aldon shakes off his annoyance and marches over to the marked spot on the duelling field, as he has done so many times.

There's the second warning whistle, and they both assume the guard position. A few moments of silence, when Aldon gets ready to _move_ , and then the start whistle blows.

And Aldon is gone – Queenscove's first spell, a non-verbal Stupefy, hits the mark on the duelling ground where he was only a second earlier. He moves diagonally, firing spells as he goes – not aiming directly at Queenscove, but at the terrain. He slicks the quarter of the field where Queenscove is standing with ice, his magical element.

"I'm from _Montr_ _é_ _al,_ " Queenscove yells at him from across the ring, a laugh in his voice. "Don't you know how icy it gets there in the winter?!"

Aldon dodges the _Flipendo_ that Queenscove fired at him while he spoke, a clever trick, before he retorts, firing off a non-verbal _Bombarda_. "I figure being in the warm and balmy south has made you forget how to skate."

"A Canadian _never_ forgets how to skate," Queenscove replies, and in evidence, he slides halfway across the ice, executing a turn that Aldon hadn't expected him to pull off, his wand already moving in another spell. Aldon throws out a shield without thought, holding it fast as three hard spells slam into it, rattling him. Queenscove isn't pulling his punches. "I even played hockey when I was a kid, you know."

"Football, for me. Proper football, I mean." Aldon launches a rapid-fire combination – _Pertus, Expelliarmus,_ and _Stupefy_. On ice, there's no way that Queenscove can move fast enough to dodge them all, and he only needs one of the latter two to hit.

" _Soccer_." Queenscove smirks, almost as if he knows Aldon will scowl and redouble his efforts the second he hears that hated word. He slides, apparently fearless of losing his balance, across the ice until he jumps off at the end of the frozen section, before turning to cast another set of spells. These slam into the ground, steps away from Aldon, and he is in the air, throwing himself out of the way before whatever they are can take effect.

 _No one_ on the circuit moves faster than Aldon Blake. It's what he is known for – his ability to cover ground fast, and his even faster spellwork. He fires a Blinding Curse at Queenscove, which borders on the limits of acceptability for circuit duelling, following it up with a slowing spell. He hides a non-verbal _Stupefy_ just after the _Impedimenta,_ but to his dismay, Queenscove dodges it and slams a spell into the ground just in front of Aldon, hard.

The ground shakes with power, and Aldon leaps backwards, eyeing the spot on the ground warily, but nothing more happens. It's only a minor earthquake spell, and Aldon spares only the briefest thought for why Queenscove even bothers with it before he turns to the offensive. He takes his time now, retreating to prepare a new strategy, and he sees Queenscove doing the same.

It's one of those quiet pauses in the middle of a duel, a moment in which the duellers can breathe and try to stare each other down. Aldon takes his time; a duel is a mental game as much as it is a physical one, and if Aldon can intimidate Queenscove enough, he'll have an edge.

Too bad that in every encounter they have had so far, Queenscove has come out on top. That means he has the edge, because Aldon is always, always conscious of the fact that he's never won against Queenscove before. From the expression on Queenscove's face, he knows it – he's wearing a grin on the other side, waiting for Aldon to come at him. Circuit duels have a time limit of five minutes, with another five in overtime, and Aldon guesses that they've already burned through half the time. He doesn't have long.

He tries another _Stupefy_ , another _Expelliarmus_ , but they're half-hearted. He doesn't think they'll hit, and just as he expects, they don't. Master Moody would have called them pointless, a waste of magic, and on the circuit they'll count against him if it goes to referee's choice. He needs to regroup.

Losing two fights against Queenscove before doesn't mean anything for this fight, he reminds himself. He's improved over the year, and every fight is a new one. And this year, this fight is for a _podium spot_ , and it's his last chance to make it on the podium before he graduates. Next year is a Triwizard year, and that means no duelling competition.

It's another breath before Aldon can launch himself back into the game. This round of spells is hard and fast, a combination of direct attack and area effect spells. He hits Queenscove with a stinging hex, but it's not enough – Queenscove barely seems to notice the pain, retaliating with his own series of Stunners, slowing spells, and other hexes. The Stinging Hex will count in Aldon's favour – he's marked Queenscove now, so on referee's decision, he'll have the advantage.

Queencove's barrage of spells pushes him back, fast and furious, looking to even the score or end the fight. It's his last circuit duel too, and he looks prepared to throw the entirety of his core into it. Aldon keeps up, but Queenscove core is a bit stronger than his, but Aldon just has to push it to the finish line. It's his very last duel on the North American League circuit, and Aldon wants to _win_.

Surrender, Stunning, or Referee's Choice. These are the three ends to a circuit duel. The first two results are sure, guaranteed wins, while the last one is always a bit chancy. One _never_ wants a circuit duel to end by referee's choice.

Queenscove is pushing him back, his stronger core helping, but Aldon's spellwork is pristine. He fires off two, three spells into every opening he has, hiding a couple spells in other spells, all non-verbal. He's so focused, so caught in the exchange, that he doesn't notice that Queenscove is manoeuvring him to a very specific place on the duelling grounds. A place that he slammed an earthquake spell into earlier, the one that Aldon wondered about before being distracted.

He takes a step, just one more step for him, one like any other, but the ground crumples underneath him. Aldon twists in the air, rolling into position to fall, and lands in a deep, muddy pit.

Fuck.

"So…" he hears Queenscove drawl, ten feet above him, and he looks up to see a bright grin. "Surrender, or should I Stun you? Because at this level, it's _literally_ going to be shooting fish in a barrel. You're the fish, by the way."

"Is this even a _legal_ move?" Aldon yells back, not that it really matters. If it isn't, Queenscove will be disqualified from the match, leaving Aldon the winner.

Queenscove shrugs. "I knew if I was up against you, I'd have to push the limits, eh? And not like you can talk – I caught a Blinding Curse and about three Severing Curses in your blitz. So, surrender or Stunning?"

Aldon sighs, a heavy breath. Goddammit. He holds his hands up for the third time facing this boy. "I surrender. Now get me out of this hole, Queenscove."

The judges rule that the trap was legal, if only barely, since there was next to no risk that Aldon would have been harmed. Aldon finishes his school Duelling career at fourth place – an entirely respectable place, but he has no shiny medals to bring home to his mother and a recording orb of his losing (twice!) to hand to Aunt Lina and Master Moody.

When he complains too much about it, Saoirse makes him a medal out of wood, asking the elements to buff it as brightly as possible for her. It's a very nice medallion, a large _4th_ carved in the middle and tied with a cranberry ribbon, and Aldon laughs to see it. It hangs on the corner of his bed, and he can't help but think that at least, he has some pretty great friends.

XXX

Seventh year dawns, and Aldon is outrageously excited. Seventh year is the Triwizard Tournament. Seventh year is _his_ chance to fight to the top of Mount Greylock in the Ceremonies, then to lead Ilvermorny to the Triwizard Cup, which they haven't seen in eight years. The Triwizard Tournament, and the Ceremonies, are also the first and only time that Aldon will ever be able to showcase his full skill. Until now, he's practiced rune-casting with wand-casting in duelling only with Aunt Lina and Master Moody, and he can't wait to show the rest of the world he can do.

He would have been excited in any case, but this year the rumours from Aunt Lina are that Hogwarts is playing. More than that, Hogwarts is _hosting_ , and Aldon is burning with the need to reveal himself to all of British wizarding society by putting one of Hogwarts' precious pureblooded champions into the dirt. Anyone who knows British wizarding nobility will know Aldon to see him, because his family resemblance to the Rosiers has only become more marked in time. He is his biological father in miniature, and he will be a cause for comment, he is sure of it.

True to their promises, Saoirse is beside him, and Toby behind both of them, handling their strategy. Over the past three years, Saoirse has become incredibly powerful by traditional standards, though her duelling circuit rankings show no sign of it. As a wand-caster, Saoirse is only average, even a little weak, but as a traditional mage, few can compare. She is their surprise; everyone expects Aldon Blake, star Ilvermorny dueller and Captain of Ilvermorny Duelling, but no one expects Saoirse Riordan.

Toby makes them focus on the Ilvermorny Ceremonies first. The Ceremonies are a free for all, always taking place over Halloween night, where any student may enter. At sunset, Aldon is waiting with a hundred others on the Gordian knot, in the grand Atrium, wearing thick, dark jeans and a heavy black sweater, armed only with his wand.

Small, wooden discs are distributed to each of them, each hanging on a thin leather string, to be looped around their necks or wrists. Portkeys, Aldon realizes, taking one with the number _53_ carved on it. Saoirse has number _54_ , and she's trembling with pent-up energy, ready for action. Aldon slings one arm over her shoulders, a quick embrace.

"I'll find you," she murmurs, so quiet that Aldon can barely hear it. "Remember the plan. Just go for it, and I'll be with you as soon as I can."

He shoots her a quick, steady smile. Aldon Blake is the best dueller at Ilvermorny, and three quarters of this crowd already have him marked as a target. She'll flank when she finds him, and together they plan to be on the top of Mount Greyjoy at dawn, even if it means carving through their schoolmates to do it.

The Portkeys take them each to random locations around the base of Mount Greyjoy, and the air is cold. This is Appalachia, and it's the end of October, and Aldon is very happy for the two thermal shirts he has layered under his sweater. He can use a Heating Charm, of course, but why waste his magic on that if he doesn't have to?

Aldon is a target, and he blows away two of his competitors before fifteen minutes are up. One falls to a non-verbal Stupefy, the other to _Petrificus Totalus_. He leaves them behind, doesn't worry about them when there are ninety-five other students that he needs to eliminate. The Portkeys are programmed to activate when their holders are inactive for more than ten minutes or when their holders activate them and return to the school, surrendering.

The first two are just the start. Aldon finds himself beset by opponents, some of whom he knows from Duelling Club and many of whom he doesn't, trying to overwhelm him when they have the benefit of numbers. It doesn't matter – he wants his spot on the mountain, and he'll fight past them all to do it. About half of them expect the dual-casting, but few of them would have expected that Aldon already knows how to dual-cast effectively in a fight. Runes are for delayed spells, tricks and area effect spells, while wands are for show and direct attacks. He hits someone with an ice spell, a tricky runic attack that lands nowhere too dangerous, uses a wide array of jinxes, curses, and hexes to break his way through. He blinds three.

Four of his opponents have decided to jump him jointly when Saoirse joins him. Aldon only feels a slight breeze, but his four opponents twitch, eyes wide, looking away from him for a single, critical instant.

One instant is all Aldon needs, and he casts three Stupefy spells to knock them out while Saoirse takes the last one.

"Took you long enough," he says with a grin, wiping the sweat off his brow.

"They had me a mile away, to the east," Saoirse says, then looks away to half-sing a liquid string of Gaelic. A breeze blows around them, warm and welcoming. "There. That should keep us hidden from anyone else looking to knock you out, or at least give us forewarning. You haven't made nearly any progress up Mount Greyjoy, you know – there are at least forty people between us and the summit."

"The higher up they go, the more they'll fight each other," Aldon replies, a little grim. "How many are left, can you tell?"

"I can ask," she says, eyeing the trees around them carefully, "but it'll take awhile for them to get an answer to me, which will probably be out of date by then anyway. I wouldn't worry about it."

Aldon nods, and they forge their way forwards, onwards and upwards. With Saoirse by his side, they are much better hidden, and they take another four groups by surprise and eliminate them before they're even halfway up the mountainside.

It gets colder as it gets darker, and the sweat that Aldon worked up duelling cools, chilly, against his skin. They're still moving, as quickly as they can, and a quiet _Tempus_ spell shows that it's not even midnight. The first burst of attacks has slowed, and he and Saoirse are alone.

Toby predicted this. From the past Ceremonies, there is a furious round of attacks early in the night, as people try to take out as many people as possible, especially those known to be powerful. Then, there is always a long period of nothing in the middle, as the survivors of the early brawl move to climbing the mountain and making it through the cold of the night. Aldon's counting on the night being relatively quiet – he's blown more than half of his core in the early fights, and more than one talented fighter has been overwhelmed by numbers before. Saoirse is their key for avoiding that, because it is only with her magic hiding him that Aldon gets any peace. They still take out anyone they run against, but that's rarer, now.

It takes four hours of hard climbing and hiking to reach the summit. They aren't the first ones there – a team of three are already standing on the summit, which Aldon thinks might be the stupidest decision to make. He recognizes one of the three as one of his own duellers and shakes his head in silent disappointment.

"Take them out?" Saoirse suggests, he voice a whisper on the wind.

Aldon shakes his head. "No. They're too open. Someone else will. We find a sheltered place within a hundred feet of here, and we hunker down and watch. A quarter-hour before dawn, we move and take out whoever is left."

Saoirse nods, silent, and they creep off into a stony outcropping, shielded with some low-lying bushes, to wait for the dawn. They nap, a strict twenty minutes each, just enough for a second wind, before they have to move.

The pale predawn glow is ominous, and Aldon cautiously peers out from their outcropping of rocks towards the summit. There's already fighting, people overeager to get things done, and he blows out an anxious breath. The trick with the morning fights is the timing; if they join too fast, they're liable to be knocked off by a later competitor who timed things better, but if they join too late, they have a clear deadline and possibly not enough time to finish. Toby recommends about fifteen to twenty minutes before dawn, which Saoirse can time better than anyone else.

There are seven people duelling on the summit of Mount Greyjoy.

"Fifteen minutes. Let's go," Saoirse whispers to him, then she mutters something else and Aldon feels another warm breeze. "If we take them by surprise, we can take them out fast. Then I'll ask the elements to warn us of anyone coming up."

Aldon nods, and they're moving, in action, slamming into one side of the brawl before anyone even realizes that they're there. Aldon Stuns two before anyone turns to engage him, and the one who does is a fifth year, Duelling Club, whose eyes widen when he realizes he's up against the Captain of Ilvermorny Duelling himself. Aldon grabs the moment of hesitation and Stuns him too. Jeremy had always had a hesitation problem.

Saoirse, beside him, has taken out one by surprise, and she's duelling someone else, a Quodpot player who has three stone on her and obviously thinks he has her outmatched. He might, if it weren't for chant that he can hear Saoirse singing, and the heavens open to rain. Aldon takes the moment of surprise to Stun someone else, completely ignoring how the icy rain soaks him, chills him to the bone.

This is the Ilvermorny Ceremonies, and he's on the summit of Mount Greyjoy. He has work to do now, and he can be sick for the next two weeks if he wants.

"Peace!" Someone yells, and Aldon turns to face off against them. Chris Marcotte, standing beside Olga Zelinsky, a seventh-year and a fifth-year. He knows Chris from Runes, and it's no surprise how he got here – one hand is already flashing through the rune for a shield, while Aldon holds one covering himself and Saoirse. "There's room enough for the four of us here, so what do you say we team up? Us against everyone!"

Aldon hesitates, and he knows without saying that Saoirse is covering his back. Chris is a strong wizard, with a deep core and deeper skillset – Olga he barely knows, but if Chris teamed with her, then she is hiding something.

"Betray us and I'll ask Saoirse to drive you mad," he snaps. "Saoirse, how much time until dawn?"

"Five minutes, and we have three incoming from the north, another three from the west!"

"We'll take the north," Chris says, and he and Olga turn to face north. Aldon shoots Saoirse a look to keep an eye on them, and turns to the west.

To survive the night, everyone left has a chance of making it, and Aldon doesn't think anymore. He blasts a runic ice spell at the three bearing down on them, and doesn't waste time being surprised when the elements help him, flinging his icicles towards his opponents with wild force. His wand is already flying through a combination _Pertus/Stupefy_ , and he varies with two different Knockback Jinxes, the Blinding Curse, a Blasting Spell, a Bombardment Charm, and he summons _fire_. He dodges, taking advantage of the speed he is known for on the duelling circuit, and as more enter the battle, he faces them in turn.

"Sixty seconds!" he hears Saoirse shout, a little out of breath, and Aldon grits his teeth, bearing it out. She's whistling, and he feels the elements coming to her aid, the ground shaking beneath their feet. Two of Aldon's opponents fall down, not expecting the ground to start moving, and Aldon Stuns them.

"Ten!" Saoirse yells, and Aldon's last Knockback Jinx lands and blows another one of his duelling club members off the summit. He takes a risk, looks to see who else is there: Chris is still standing, another rune coming off his fingers, while Olga is casting in a language Aldon doesn't recognize but that he immediately guesses is Old Slavic. Her spell, whatever it is, drops the boy bearing down on them.

When the sun peeks over the horizon on November 1, 1994, it's Aldon Blake, Saoirse Riordan, Chris Marcotte and Olga Zelinsky who make up the 1995 Ilvermorny Triwizard team.

XXX

After the Christmas holiday, they spend only a month in America before they're on the plane back to Britain. Toby's been busy the entire time; he's Aldon's strategist, Saoirse picking an Irish fifth-year for hers, but he's the lead for communications with the other British students from North America. Before they step on the plane back home, there are endless meetings to go over lodging, security, a million other details meant to keep their teams safe in a country notoriously hostile to newbloods and halfbloods.

The first time Aldon Blake meets Hermione Granger is John F. Kennedy aeroport in New York City, just before they fly for the Tournament. He's heard her voice before, even recognizes her vaguely from the annual flights to and from Britain, but the AIM students sit close to the front of the plane while Ilvermorny is near the back. He's never had any reason to talk to her before.

"Wizarding Britain is unstable," she's saying, and everyone around her, listening, is British, Scottish, Irish. "One of my friends was at the SOW Party Gala – it's the economy. They're staggering, and the trade embargoes are starting to price some magical commodities out of reach. Wards are the biggest issue."

Aldon leans forward, his attention caught by her first few lines, and he ignores most of the rest. "You have a friend who went to the _SOW Party Gala?_ "

His voice is a little accusatory, and Hermione frowns. "A few, actually. Formally, the SOW Party Gala is a fundraising event, so a lot of people attend who aren't in the SOW Party, you know."

Aldon is mentally reviewing the entire AIM team in his head. He studied the teams in detail over the winter holidays, and it looked like all the North American schools, as well as the Oceania Institute, had gone out of their way to stack their team with British newbloods and halfbloods. Sean Docherty, one of Saoirse's Irish friends, had made it onto the Cascadia team, and he recognized the Scamander name from the Oceania Institute as well. He had paused over _Harry Potter_ , from AIM, because Peverell House had been held by the Potters since the fifteenth century, but Harry Potter is such a common name, and the Potter Heiress is named Harriett. But then, he had been distracted by the fact that Nealan Queenscove, his nemesis, hadn't made it onto the AIM team proper, and had spent a good fifteen minutes dreaming about finding him at the Tournament and mocking him for it. As far as he could remember, however, no one on the AIM team would have been of the status to attend anything like the SOW Party Gala.

"The SOW Party Gala is still a who's who of Wizarding British Society," he replies, waving a hand and marking the point for later. Five years on, Toby, Aunt Lina and Master Moody have all finally managed to teach him how to hold his tongue—sometimes. "Consider me curious, Hermione, that's all. Go on."

Hermione looks a little suspicious, but she goes on anyway, while Aldon privately resolves to take another, closer, look at the AIM team. Hermione is a newblood, so it isn't very likely that she would meet someone within the British wizarding society other than at school.

It's that night, dressed in a suit with the school-issued blue and cranberry tie and Ilvermorny pin on his chest, that he meets Francesca Lam.

She is across the room when he, Toby and Saoirse enter. His initial scan of the room is just habit. He always scans a room, when he first walks in—one summer of being ambushed by Master Moody and Aunt Lina on entering rooms, and he's learned that it's better to be cautious. His eyes catch first on a dark-haired boy, dressed in a suit a bit too large for him with a sky-blue tie, and his gift screams that the boy is _lying_ _._

He doesn't know who the boy is, other than an AIM student. He can't even hear anything the boy is saying, from this side of the room. It has to be something else. His appearance? It could be a glamour, just someone trying to look their best, but in Aldon's experience people under glamour or makeup spells don't tend to trigger his magic. His gift reacts to _deception_ , and most people don't think that they're lying when they use glamour or makeup spells, only that they're being their best possible selves.

Saoirse and Toby pick up on his attention right away, and their guards come up, but then—

Then Aldon's eyes slide to another one of the girls at that table. She is sitting beside someone he recognizes from the duelling circuit, John Kowalski, who broke top eight last year. Her hair is long, dark, put half up in knot at the back of her head, while the rest of it spills down her back, and her dark eyes are shining in amusement. Her sky-blue gown reveals slim, golden-brown shoulders that seem perfect, and there are ruby and gold earrings dangling from her earlobes, bright against dark waves. They match the delicate ruby resting at her neck.

She's the prettiest girl he's ever seen.

Saoirse smacks him on the arm. "Eyes. What's wrong with you?"

Aldon doesn't know where to start, but the chair beside the pretty girl is empty. "I don't know yet. Let's go sit at that table, with AIM."

"What?" Toby hisses, but Aldon is already on his way, sliding into the empty seat beside that beautiful girl.

"Hello," he says, pleased to hear that he doesn't sound quite as out of breath as he feels. "My name is Aldon Blake. I'm from Ilvermorny. What's yours?"

"Excuse our friend," he hears Toby, sounding deeply embarrassed, saying behind him. "He's kind of an idiot sometimes. Maybe all of the time."

"I think we all have our idiot moments," Kowalski replies, amused, but Aldon is entirely focused on the girl in front of him. "Don't worry. I've seen this before."

The girl is shying away from him slightly, a bit intimidated, and Aldon checks his body language to make sure he is as unthreatening as possible. She might be nervous, or easily frightened, but she's won a spot in the Triwizard Tournament and that means there has to be more to her than meets the eye.

"Francesca Lam," she says eventually, and her voice is soft, quiet. "I'm from AIM – a strategist. For, um—"

She glances to her right, towards Kowalski, who gives Aldon a sharp grin and Aldon feels a warning tap on his mental shields. A Legilimens, and Aldon knows enough of the big names in Wizarding America to know the Kowalski name. He's probably inherited the gift, Natural Legilimency. Interesting.

"Toby is my strategist," Aldon says, friendly, glancing over the rest of the table. Aside from Kowalski and the liar boy, there's also Hermione Granger. "And Saiorse, my teammate."

"Tobias McLean, and Saoirse Riordan." Toby gives the formal introduction, nodding towards the table. "Hermione. Have a good flight?"

Hermione smiles back at them, though her eyes rest curiously on Aldon for the second time that day. "It was fine, or as good as you can expect for a five-hour flight."

"I don't suppose anyone is sitting here, are they?" Toby grins, a little sheepish. "I mean, I can drag Aldon away if you were saving your table for anyone, but—"

"Have I mentioned that I'm the captain of the Ilvermorny Duelling Team?" Aldon breaks in, addressing the vision in the sky-blue dress in front of him. Closer up, he can see that her dress is made of a light, breezy fabric, draping delicately over her modest curves, and he can't help but wonder if she's chilly. "Fourth on the circuit, last year."

"I – I see," the girl says, exchanging a glance with Kowalski, who looks about ready to burst into laughter. "Um—weren't you eliminated by Neal, last year?"

Aldon winces, while Saoirse laughs. "Ooh, fatal blow. He's down for the count."

"I, um, I'm sorry," the girl, Francesca, splutters, looking away quickly. "I didn't realize – um, I don't – I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Aldon's smile is weak, but it is still a smile, and she glances over at him and a tiny smile flutters across her face too. Tiny it might be, but it makes a world of difference – her eyes crinkle a little, and her nose twitches, and she looks so shy and embarrassed that he can't help but edge himself closer, just a little closer. "You're beautiful when you smile, you know."

His friends groan, but she laughs, which lights up her whole face. In that moment, Aldon _understands_ —god damn it all, but he is his mother's son, and it turns out that he falls just as quickly and as intensely as Christina Blake once fell for the Lord Evan Rosier. If this beautiful girl wants to stomp all over his heart, he thinks he might just lie down and let her do it for the few weeks, months or years that he'll get to share with her.

"You might as well sit," an unknown voice adds, his voice accented with a soft British accent, smothering a laugh. Aldon looks up, identifying the liar boy with a quick look, and he very carefully keeps the scowl from coming across his face. "Harry Potter—nice to meet you."

Aldon's core twists immediately, and he knows that his friends can read the shift in his posture already. He doesn't like liars, or lying, any more than any other person with his gift would. A lie of this magnitude isn't just uncomfortable, it _hurts_ , it burns in his core like fire. His instinct is to call the boy out, tell him to stop lying, force him to reveal to everyone just what he's hiding. His appearance is a lie, and his name is probably a lie as well. He's an impostor, a fake, and Aldon looks at him and reads a _threat_.

But Kowalski is stiff too. A fellow dueller, Aldon can read the signs. Kowalski sees that Aldon is ready to pounce, and he's ready to respond in kind. And Aldon comes back to himself, just enough to realize that this is not the time to rip away the lie. They're at the traditional North American League banquet, an opportunity for the players and teams from North America to meet and mingle before the war games start, and he remembers that _Harry Potter_ on the AIM team is a Healer anyway. An attack on a _player_ might be laughed over later, but no one appreciates an attack on a Healer.

As a Natural Legilimens, Kowalski probably knows the secret, Aldon realizes. If the liar boy is British, and with that accent he likely is, and he's in North America for schooling, then he is most likely a legal halfblood or a newblood. As either a halfblood or a newblood, it isn't very likely that he would have received Occlumency training before starting at AIM, so Kowalski almost certainly knows whatever it is that Potter is hiding. And Kowalski is ready to jump to the defense of his friend, so maybe the secret isn't worth chasing, right now. He considers launching a mental attack on Kowalski, just to see, but an attack would open himself up as well and he doesn't want to let out his own gift right away. He's never been good at mental warfare anyway.

And Francesca is sitting at this table. She's clearly friendly with the liar boy, if not friends. Either she knows what the liar boy's secrets are, and if she did, she wouldn't appreciate him pushing for them now, or she doesn't and she is in as much danger as the rest. If he is silent now, he can try to pin her down on it later. If she knows, he can try to find out what it is to make a proper threat assessment; if she doesn't, he can try to soften the blow to her when he rips the lie away. Aldon hates lies, and he _will_ find out the truth behind this one. Later.

"It's nice to meet you, too," Aldon replies casually, forcing himself to relax and letting another smile come across his face. "You're a Healer, right?"

"That's right," Potter says with an easy grin of his own. "I'm looking forward to the matches."

Aldon looks behind him, up at his friends, who are giving him a look of barely hidden caution and curiosity. They know him too well—they saw him tense, and now they are seeing him force himself to calm. "Come on, Toby, Saoirse—why are you still standing? They've invited us now, so let's join them for dinner."

If he is honest with himself later, he is only half-paying attention to the conversation over dinner. They touch on Wizarding British politics, nothing he doesn't already know, and he says only that he's an undocumented halfblood from Manchester, much like Saoirse's friend Sean from Galway. No one asks about his appearance, much to his relief, so he guesses that no one at this table knows the British nobility enough to see his father in him. He prefers that.

Instead, he quite rudely preoccupies himself with Francesca on his right for most of the evening. She's from San Francisco, a newblood, but her family comes from Hong Kong. She's best friends with John Kowalski, and clearly that friendship is exceedingly important to her, so Aldon makes a note to stay on Kowalski's good side. She loves magical dance, and Disney movies, and tea, and romance novels, and the more he prods, the more flattered she seems to be. He's just about decided that he's going to make his best efforts to have one of the famed Triwizard Tournament whirlwind romances with her, the very concept of which he has hitherto scorned, when no person other than Nealan Queenscove shows up at his table.

"Blake!" his archrival sings, slapping one hand on his shoulder. "Didn't get a chance to say hello earlier. How are you? _Félicitations_ on making it through the Ilvermorny Ceremonies, no surprises, though I heard from my sister that you were sick as a dog afterwards."

Aldon looks up to see the biggest shit-eating grin on Queenscove's face, and he remembers that Jessa Queenscove, a third-year, is in Duelling Club with him at Ilvermorny. "That's right," he starts, then he sees Queenscove's eyes slide over to Francesca, who has lit up to see him.

"Is Blake bothering you, Francesca?" he asks, the grin not budging one iota as he glances back down at Aldon. "He's a terror on the duelling circuit, though I've beat him _three_ times."

"And didn't make the AIM team," Aldon retorts, scrambling for a response. He was planning on finding Queenscove for the express purpose of mocking him, he really was, but in the moment all his carefully planned quips seem rather childish. And Francesca is looking at Queenscove with a smile, and he realizes that they're friends. God _damn_ it.

Queenscove's expression tells him that Queenscove knows perfectly well what just went through his head.

"No, no, I'm fine," Francesca is insisting, sounding a little embarrassed. "Aldon's been, um, very nice."

"Nice, eh?" Queenscove wiggles his eyebrows a little, then he looks over at Aldon. "You have to understand—my older brother Will is practically engaged to her older sister, so Francesca's family. Do anything weird, and the might of Clans Queenscove and Kowalski will come crashing down on you."

"That's a vague threat if I've ever heard one," Aldon says, trying to sound disgusted instead of unnerved. "I could take you on."

"You couldn't last year." Queenscove grins again. "And John there took me out at the AIM Trials, so by the transitive property of duelling victories—"

"There is no transitive property of duelling victories!"

Francesca giggles, the sound musical to his ears, and he turns back to her with an embarrassed smile. "Don't worry about this, sweetheart. Queenscove is just taking the opportunity to mock me, because he can."

"There are just so few opportunities for me to do it," Queenscove sighs airily. "I have to take them where they come. But seriously, Blake, hurt her and we'll hurt you. I wasn't joking about that part."

Aldon shakes his head, but he's smiling. He does understand, because he would do the same if someone hurt Toby or Saoirse, too. Relationships are important, and he understands being protective. "Not in the plans—though, I was hoping to dance, later?"

He looks back at Francesca for the latter, and is gratified to see her smile. "I suppose—well, can you do magical dance at all? In the air?"

"A bit." Aldon takes her hand, feeling more grateful than ever that Saoirse had shown him the air-hardening rune last year and that he had tried it out in duelling a few times. It was a handy trick to have in his back pocket. "Nothing too fancy, but I'll keep up."

She smiles again, and she lets him keep her hand. Fortunately, it turns out she likes the crème brulée dessert, so Aldon doesn't need to awkwardly eat with his left hand while holding hers. He simply slides his dessert over to her and learns that she has a whole second stomach for sweets.

Even Toby's grumbling about how he has the most embarrassing best friend in possible existence doesn't deflate him. Toby's complained about Aldon being embarrassing for years, and Aldon has enough self-assurance and confidence that he just doesn't care.

As stunned as he might be by Francesca, though, he doesn't forget the liar boy.

He's sitting in the much cooler and quieter lounge, hours of dancing later, before he asks. It's dark out now, and his suit jacket is draped over Francesca's shoulders, and she's curled up beside him. In the last few hours, he's learned that she's a runic paperwitch, which she didn't seem to want to talk about, and that she is very, very good at magical dance. He's learned that she has few close friends, only John when she gets down to it, but she's friendly with many others, including the liar who calls himself Harry Potter.

He hopes that she knows nothing about the liar boy. It's easier for him if she doesn't, because then she's just one more possible victim in his deception, and Aldon prefers not to see her as a collaborator.

"Potter," he says, thoughtful, wondering just how to go about asking questions. "I don't think I've heard of him before, and most of the British students abroad kind of know of each other, even if we've never met. Isn't he part of your BSA?"

"No, not that I know." Francesca frowns. She is much more relaxed around him, now, and she doesn't stutter half as much. "He's in theatre and Healing Association, I think. Why do you ask?"

Aldon shrugs. She's being honest, there. "I was just curious—most British join the BSA, it's just a bit odd that he hasn't."

There's a long pause, and Aldon waits. Her hand is warm, and he pulls it into his lap, drawing little circles on the back of it. Her frown hasn't disappeared, but she's chewing on her bottom lip.

"I think he's trying not to be noticed by people from Britain," she says finally, her voice dropping. "He's recognizable, or something like that. I don't—I'm not really one to ask things like that, Aldon. I mean—we all have things we want to keep private, right? If he wants me to know, then he'll tell me. It's not—I don't really care, if that makes sense?"

She's being honest, and her innocent trust is charming, even sweet. For Aldon, that kind of trust is a luxury; he always wants to know _more_ about the people around him, because the more he knows, the less they can surprise him. It isn't that he _doesn't_ trust—it's that trust is something earned from him, not a default given. And he doesn't trust someone who's lying about something as basic as his _face_ and his _name_.

Recognizable, though. In Wizarding Britain? Aldon knows what that means, his past tutoring in the noble class and their etiquette finally paying off. The Potters hold House Peverell, and their _daughter_ , _Harriett_ Potter, is supposed to attend AIM. The liar boy is about the right age, too.

The beginning of a logical explanation form in his mind, but it doesn't make sense with his gut, or with his gift.

"Has he…" he ventures slowly. "Has Potter always gone by that name? _Harry_ Potter, I mean. And he's always been… him, I suppose?"

Francesca gives him a very odd look. It is an odd question, Aldon grants.

"Yes," she replies, puzzled. "I don't know what you mean, but he's always gone by Harry and he's always been himself. I don't—I mean—why are you asking?"

She sounds upset, and she's starting to pull away from him, so Aldon is hasty to reply. He grips her hand, plasters a bright smile on his face. "It's not important, sweetheart. Don't worry about it. You said it's your first time in Scotland, and you're going out tomorrow to see the castle, right? Let me take you. I want to take you out."

She stops, looking up at him, and there's a moment where she just looks at him, her dark eyes wide and almost surprised. Then, she smiles, and her nose crinkles just a touch. "Like—a date?"

Aldon grins back, tapping her on her nose. "I thought I made that clear. Yes, a date."

He drops Francesca back off at her room shortly after midnight, feeling very grateful that the entire North American League is staying in the same cheap, three-star hotel in Edinburgh. By the time he reaches his own room, shared with Toby, his friend is already there, lounging on one of the double beds and watching the telly.

"What's on?" Aldon asks, kicking off his shoes and finding a hangar to pull off his suit jacket. He strips off his tie, his shirt and trousers, and digs in his suitcase for a t-shirt and shorts.

"Nothing good," Toby replies, reaching for the remote to flick off the telly. "I'm not sure why I'm surprised. There's never anything good on at midnight on a Wednesday. What was that about at dinner, Al? I know you—we've been friends for years. You picked something up, and you didn't like it. And what about Francesca?"

"She's stunning, isn't she?" Aldon grins. "And she's _so_ sweet, and when she dances—"

Toby groans. "Spare me your lovesick descriptions. Dinner. What happened at dinner?"

Aldon sighs, shaking his head, feeling the magic of the later part of the evening slip away as he falls onto his own bed. "Harry Potter is a liar. It's not his real face, and it's not his real name, and what gets me is that he _knows_ it, he _knows_ he's lying and he's doing it anyway with a smile. Francesca doesn't know anything, by the way—I asked her, she said he's always gone by that name, seemed puzzled and then upset that I asked."

"He's British, but I never met him or saw him at any BSA events." Toby rolls over on the bed, onto his back. "I don't remember him being on the AIM membership lists, either. Odd."

"Francesca says that she thinks he's worried about being recognized." Aldon hesitates, then he sighs again. Toby is his best friend, and he's always told Toby everything. They've gotten drunk too many times together over too many years to have much by way of secrets. "That means he's probable nobility, which makes a lot of sense with what Granger was telling us at JFK this morning but _doesn't_ make a lot of sense with what I know about the nobility. There _is_ a noble family called the Potters, but…"

"But?"

Aldon shakes his head. "You're going to think I've gone daft. The Potters are Light faction, and their heiress is a halfblood, about the right age, named _Harriett_ Potter. She's supposed to be at school in America. Their _heiress_ , Toby. Harriett Potter is a girl."

Toby blinks, then he tilts his head, thinking it through. "Er, Al, you said he's lying about his face and his name. And he matches the description of a halfblood _girl_ about the same age with almost the same name. Don't you think there's an obvious solution, here?"

"That the Harry Potter we met is setting me off because he's really _Harriett_ Potter and a girl?"

"Yeah." Toby throws him a worried look. "I mean, think about it. You're Harriett Potter, a girl, but you really feel like Harry Potter, a boy. You go abroad, and it's the first time you can shed the identity prescribed to you to live life as the boy you feel like you are. So, you put on a glamour spell, you change your name. Doesn't that solve the lying issue?"

"No. No, it really doesn't." Aldon blows out a frustrated breath. "Because my gift doesn't react to the _spell_ , it reacts to deception. And people who are trans _aren't lying_ , Toby—they _are_ the gender they identify themselves as, so it's the same thing as makeup spells. The glamour just lets them be their real selves so if it was as easy as Harry Potter being trans, then he wouldn't trigger my gift at all. No, it's something else, and I _want to know what it is_."

Toby eyes him for a moment. He knows Aldon too well, and he knows the stubborn look coming across Aldon's face, too. "And Francesca?"

"What about her?"

"Are you using her for information, or do you really like her? Because," Toby pauses, thinking it over. "Whatever your intentions are, it's going to look like the former if you push too hard."

"I know." Aldon's voice is quiet. "I'll have to be careful about it—I do like her, a lot, and I'd like to get the information _without_ trashing my chances with her."

Toby thinks for a moment, then he smiles. "Good luck. I'm actually kind of glad to see you crushing on someone. You were always so skeptical about dating—it can be great, you know. Though it's funny to see that you're apparently quite a lot like your mum when it comes to falling in love."

So says the one that has been dating on and off since fifth year. Aldon rolls his eyes but doesn't argue. He's been thinking the same thing half through the night. "Better like my mum than my sperm donor. If I ever abandon anyone after knocking them up, just kill me, Toby. I don't want to be that person."

XXX

Edinburgh Castle is beautiful, but Aldon has to admit that he doesn't spend much time looking around the famed historical landmark. He's too preoccupied watching Francesca flit about the castle, a dreamy look on her face as she stares in wonder. She loves everything about the castle: its prominent position on a rocky hill overlooking the City of Edinburgh, the sheer walls and ramparts, the ancient buildings and squares steeped in history. She reads every last one of the little informational plaques littered across the grounds, from the little one on St Margaret's Chapel telling them that it was the only building spared when Robert the Bruce captured the castle in 1314, to the one by the tiny fountain called the Witches' Well, where hundreds of women were burnt at the stake.

Aldon, for his part, looks around and thinks about his own heritage, about the future that Aunt Lina has prepared him to fight for, if he wants it. He's never been to Rosier Place, but he's sure it looks nothing like the majesty around him. To begin, while he knows the Rosiers are wealthy, they're Book of Copper, which means they were ennobled well after the time when these kinds of fortresses were built. Rosier Place is more likely a large mansion house, not a castle, built with large windows, a wide drive for carriages, and comfort rather than protection.

It's not the first time he's wondered about his supposed birthright. When he was a child, he thought about it endlessly—what would it have been like, to grow up as the recognized Heir to House Rosier? What would it have been like, to be wealthy, to have all the etiquette tutors and status that his heritage was supposed to offer him? What would it have been like, to be Aldon _Rosier_ rather than Aldon Blake?

He would never call his upbringing impoverished, but it is true that his mum had to keep a strict eye on their budget. They've lived in the same, slightly run-down townhouse in the same blue-collar neighbourhood his entire life, and while they've never strictly needed to shop in second-hand stores, neither have they ever declined second-hand clothing, books, or anything else Aldon might have needed. A penny saved is a penny earned, or at least it's a penny that he and Mum can spend on something fun like ice cream, or a movie, or the rare ticket to a Man U game.

As Aldon Rosier, they wouldn't have had to worry about money. He would have had everything at his fingertips—anything they wanted, they could have had. As a child, he was so, so jealous of the imaginary person he should have been.

As an adult, he mostly burns with fury about it all. This is the world that he _should_ have inherited, and he doesn't have it, because he isn't _pure_.

"Can we go to the gift shop?" Francesca asks, returning with a bright, excited look in her eyes.

"Sure." Aldon smiles back. He's been done in this room, the old armoury, for at least the last ten minutes, while Francesca examined the tapestries so closely that he wonders if she now has them memorized. "If you're done here."

"Then—oh, are you hungry?" A look of guilt flashes over her face as she checks her watch. "I'm sorry, it's almost two, and we didn't get lunch…"

"It's fine," Aldon reassures her, even if he's been starving for the past hour. His core rumbles in mild displeasure at the white lie, and he tells it to shut up. He had, as a fifth-year, tried a period of _radical honesty_ , but after being jumped three times in a month by other students in dark corridors for it, he has come to appreciate that some lies are better for everyone involved. "Gift shop, then a late lunch, how is that?"

"Yeah." Francesca smiles, takes Aldon's hand, and tugs him towards the gift shop.

It's past three by the time they find a place for lunch, Francesca weighed down by a new scarf in a tartan pattern, a stuffed bear wearing kilt, and a dozen keychains for her parents and friends. The food is decent, but overpriced since they are in the heart of the tourist district, and Aldon doesn't ask a single question about Harry Potter, or AIM, or the Tournament. Instead, he just listens, lets Francesca direct the conversation where she pleases.

They talk about food, mostly—a logical place to start, since they're sitting and eating. San Francisco is a big, international city with a burgeoning No-Maj tech industry, and Francesca, it seems, has eaten everything. But then again, Aldon has grown up in Manchester, a growing international city of its own, and he's eaten his own wide array of food. They debate for an hour over the proper way to eat a slice of pizza (with their hands, clearly), the function of pasta (as a vehicle for sauce, obviously), and whether tortellini are really just weird Chinese dumplings (definitely not, Chinese dumplings taste better). He learns that Francesca loves dessert, but surprisingly not chocolate—she says it's too sweet, and she much prefers vanilla over chocolate.

From there, the conversation wanders. They talk about music—Aldon is all punk rock, but Francesca likes classical, swing and soundtracks, and then it turns to movies. Ilvermorny is so isolated, in the Appalachians, that the students really can't go anywhere during term, and Aldon has to catch up on all his favourite shows and No-Maj culture over the holidays. They've both been following Star Trek for a while, though Aldon tends to just watch it when it's on while Francesca follows it near religiously, but he knows enough to argue about the merits of _Deep Space Nine_ against _The Next Generation_ with her. He learns, from that conversation, that Francesca's parents both work in No-Maj engineering, her father in materials engineering and her mother in computer engineering, and that she herself intends on attending No-Maj college after AIM for engineering. As far as Francesca is concerned, computers are the way of the future, and mages will need to catch up or be left behind.

She's not wrong, Aldon admits, and he wishes he had one. He'd love to experiment with the interplay between magic and No-Maj technology, but computers are expensive, and while Mum has been eyeing one for a while, she just can't justify the cost of it yet. Francesca looks stunned, then briefly horrified, then promises that she'll build him a computer out of some spare parts she has at home, because a computer is something that he simply _has_ to have, and then she falls all over herself apologizing because really, she shouldn't be saying this to someone she's just met. Aldon laughs, and he laughs, and he tells her it's fine, and by the time they're back in the hotel he's secured himself a second date.

The next day, Francesca looks upset when he meets her in the hotel lobby.

"What's up?" he asks, reaching for her hand. They had spent enough of yesterday hand in hand, walking all over the old city, that he knows she'll let him take it.

"Nothing," she lies, trying to cover it with a tiny smile. "It's nothing. Let's just—let's go. Arthur's Seat and Holyrood Park!"

He frowns at her. "It's not nothing," he says, leaning down a little to look at her. "What's wrong?"

She shakes her head furiously. "Just—nothing."

Aldon thinks for a minute, wondering how much about himself he should tell her. His gift itself is not a secret—everyone at Ilvermorny knows of it, and he really does mean everyone. Aldon's never been good at keeping his mouth shut when he picks out a lie, and there was the period of radical honesty too. Revealing his gift also has no impact on the Tournament, for Ilvermorny, because he isn't their weapon—Saoirse is. But revealing it now could be an interesting prod.

"You can't lie to me, Francesca," he says, with a gentle smile. "I have the Truth-Speaker gift, so lies hurt my core. Why don't we talk about it? Arthur's Seat and Holyrood Park can wait for us—and I'll even Apparate us there, to save time."

She looks surprised, then alarmed, then she starts to shake and tries to pull her hand away. "I don't—what does that mean? What do you _know_ _?!_ "

"Not much." Aldon grips her hand, turning her to look at him directly. "Hey. Hey, calm down. Truth Speaker gifts aren't like Natural Legilimency or anything, not like what John has. I only know when people are lying to me, not anything else. So I know you're upset, and I know that your _nothing_ is a lie, but I don't know why. I'd like to know why."

She stops struggling. "Are you just doing this to find out more about AIM and our strategy?"

"This?"

She waves her hand in a little circle, panicked and miserable. "Taking—taking me out on a date. Flirting with me. Making me—making me feel special."

Aldon tilts his head. "Have I asked you a _single_ thing about the AIM team strategy?"

"No, but—" she pauses, and there's something she isn't saying, but Aldon decides to leave it alone. It probably has to do with AIM team strategy anyway. "No."

"Have I ever pushed you on AIM or anything else to make you feel uncomfortable?"

"Just—just on Harry. But he's a Healer, and he has nothing to do with team strategy, and—"

"And?"

"And John says it was weird that you asked. Everything else was fine, just—just that."

Aldon sighs. He doesn't like doing this, but its clear as day that whatever the liar boy is hiding, Francesca has no idea. "I asked because—well. When he introduced himself to me, when he said his name was Harry Potter, he was lying."

She blinks once, then twice. "I don't—I don't understand. Harry's always been Harry. I don't—"

"I don't understand either," Aldon cuts her off. "But if he's always been Harry, and you haven't picked up a big change, then maybe it has nothing to do with the Tournament, or anything else. People can lie for all reasons, I just—I use my gift to try to keep my friends and family safe. That's all. Do you want to go to the park, now?"

She's thinking, a worried frown on her face. "So—so, um, are you, um—these dates—"

"I'm taking you on these dates because I _like_ you, Francesca." Aldon keeps his voice soft, but firm. "I'm the Captain of Ilvermorny Duelling—I don't need to resort to tricks to lead Ilvermorny to a victory. Ask Neal Queenscove about me, if you want. We're not even in the same pools, so let's just deal with Tournament things when we need to. Let's just go to the park, the way we planned, and have some fun."

There's a moment of hesitation, then looks up and giggles a little. "You… like me?"

"I said it, and it's true." Aldon smiles, squeezing her hand. "The Tournament is famous for whirlwind romances, you know. It's _traditional_."

"Yeah. Neal's parents met in the Tournament, and I yelled at John this morning about Gerry, too." Francesca smiles back, her mood lightening. "And Neal is trying to get together with Kel's friend from Mahoutokoro. So—so…"

"So we'll go have fun," Aldon finishes, tugging her outside. "Come on."

The lookout at Arthur's Seat, with its grand panoramic view of the city of Edinburgh, is a solid hour's hike uphill. The sight, however, is beautiful, and Aldon can't help but cast a Notice-Me-Not charm for the express purpose of hiding them from the other tourists so that he can lean down and capture Francesca's lips in a kiss. One kiss leads to two, leads to three, and that's when he pulls away because he wants enough more that a Notice-Me-Not Charm in a public place is just not going to cut it. He's not Toby, who's been caught snogging more than one girl in the Wampus common room, while he and Saoirse criticize his technique—anything more than a few kisses, and he'd rather be behind a shut door, thank you. Some things are better kept private.

They do have to be back early because Aldon has a team meeting, so it's with some regret that he leaves her at her room in the hotel a few hours later. When he resurfaces from arguing about how El Colegio Castellano de Magia has literally never managed to put together a team worth worrying about, with Toby taking the lead on arguing why they should prepare anyway, he isn't entirely surprised to see John Kowalski waiting for him.

"Truth-Speaker," the boy says, with a friendly, if edged, smile. "Can we talk?"

"This counts as talking." Aldon leans back against the wall, assessing his options. Narrow hallway, a decent place for a fight if there is one, partially because since Aldon is small he's hampered less than John would be, and partially because Aldon's used to scrapping in hallways. He's also at the advantage here because Toby and Saoirse are beside him, and a few of the other Ilvermorny team members are hovering in the corridor, throwing John a curious glance.

"Privately, I mean?"

Aldon raises an eyebrow.

John sighs. "I'm not about to jump you. I really do just want to talk."

He's speaking truth, so Aldon turns to his teammates. "It's fine. You can all go ahead, I'll meet you later."

Most of his teammates nod and disappear, though Toby hesitates. "I'll see you back in our room in half an hour," he says, glancing at John in a clear warning. "If not, I'm getting everyone and looking for you."

"I'm sure you won't need to." Aldon smiles, his own expression a little edged, then he tilts his head towards the board room. "After you, John."

They don't sit down, in the board room. Instead, John perches on the edge of the table, while Aldon leans back against the shut door, waiting.

John has called him out, so John should start.

"Harry Potter," John says, his voice low and serious.

"Harry Potter is a liar," Aldon replies.

"He is, but his lies don't have anything to do with the Tournament." John's expression is stern, and he's telling the truth. "I know what he's hiding, and it's—it's something that's been going on since his first year, since before he even knew about the Tournament. It has nothing to do with anything, so I'm asking you not to look into it."

"Your friend is hiding his _name_ and his _face_." Aldon straightens, takes a step forward. "I can't think of a lot of innocuous reasons for that. Especially when you include the fact that I only read deception; if it were something like being trans, or hiding scarring, or a change of name, it wouldn't read as a lie to me. He's lying about who he _is_ , and I need to know if that's a danger to me or my team. Or even to Francesca, who doesn't seem to know anything about it."

Anger flashes over John's face. "You've known Chess for all of three days; I'm basically her brother. I would _never_ let anything happen to her. I'm telling you, Aldon, I know the secret. I'm not going to say it's an innocuous secret, but it has nothing to do with you, or us, or with this Tournament. It's his personal business, and the only person he's hurting is himself. Leave it alone, man."

John believes what he's saying. Aldon doesn't. From what John is saying, from what Francesca has said, clearly Harry Potter is some sort of long-term impostor, and he doesn't know if John has really thought through the consequences of a long-term impostor situation. Aldon doesn't know if even he can grasp the consequences of a long-term imposter situation just yet.

He doesn't get it. What could possibly be worth such a long term lie? What was Potter getting out of lying that he wouldn't get otherwise? Coming from Britain, Potter wouldn't even know what he was getting into at AIM for long-term plotting purposes. Unless, maybe…

He's looking to emigrate from Britain to Wizarding America and can't do it through normal channels? Werewolf, dhampir, shifter or part-creature, potentially, but why? Or, maybe it is some larger, very personal reason—he wouldn't have entered into this without something at stake, and judging from John's comment, _the only person he's hurting is himself_ , maybe it's the last that's the most accurate.

Aldon relaxes, a bit. He doesn't care about grand personal reasons so much as he cares about safety, and if John thinks it's fine and it is a long-term situation, then it likely isn't a _dangerous_ secret, or at least not imminently so. He can leave it alone for the moment. The Tournament is only a few months long, and he can always keep a close eye on the boy in the meantime.

It doesn't look like he has much choice anyway. He _wants_ to rip away the mask, to find out what Harry Potter is hiding, but he won't get any closer to finding out what it is by fighting John. John looks prepared to duel him over it, and there's nothing to be gained by fighting it in the here and now. He just doesn't know enough, yet.

"All right," Aldon says easily, leaning back against the door, "since you've asked so nicely. Let's talk about something else. You argued with Francesca this morning. Over me."

John's jaw tightens. "I was warning her."

"I _like_ her, John." Aldon keeps his voice pleasant, but there's a steely edge to it anyway. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"I like to keep her from getting hurt, where I can." John crosses his arms over his chest. "You're handsome, a seventh-year, and the Ilvermorny Duelling Captain to boot. Tell me you don't have a lineup of girls at Ilvermorny waiting for you."

Aldon doesn't. The whole Truth-Speaking thing but a kibosh on that, and then there was the radical honesty phase. He laughs, his eyebrows moving upwards in amusement. "I really don't. You can ask anyone on my team to confirm. Though, I'm glad to hear that you think I'm handsome."

"Francesca does, too." John flashes a grin, though it's not a nice one. "Hurt her and I'll hurt you."

"Queenscove already gave me this lecture, John." Aldon shakes his head, his smile disappearing. "I just don't appreciate you putting completely unwarranted ideas about how I'm using her into her head. Ilvermorny doesn't need to rely on such underhanded methods to win against you—we can win this Tournament on our own."

They glare at each other a moment, then John laughs, and the sound rings as genuine in Aldon's core. "I guess we'll see you in the finals, then."

"Thrash Hogwarts for us tomorrow." Aldon smiles, back at ease. He thinks he has enough of a fix on John now—while John might never be on his side, neither will he throw any more wrenches into the gears with Francesca. And Aldon can find out more about the liar calling himself Harry Potter later.

XXX

The next day, Ilvermorny is on the field at nine in the morning and they clean out El Colegio Castellano de Magia in under thirty minutes. It's an absolute horror for the Spanish team, but on Lake they're on one of Ilvermorny's strongest terrains—anything set out in nature, and Saoirse's traditional magic is blasting in full force. Most of their time is spent just going around the lake, jogging fueled by speed spells with Saoirse's magic hiding them, and it takes them only ten minutes to find two members of the Spanish team and for Aldon and Chris to eliminate them from play. Then, while Aldon toys around with the last Spanish teammate, Saoirse finds the keystone and destroys it. A clean five-nothing win, and Ilvermorny is already the team to beat.

AIM is still in on the field when Aldon comes out, against Hogwarts, and he settles down in the lounge to watch. It's only a few minutes before he realizes that AIM is doing well—very well. They've already taken out two of Hogwarts' players, and Aldon hopes that AIM toyed with them as much as Aldon would have.

It is one of the biggest tragedies of the Triwizard Tournament format. Aldon would have given much for Ilvermorny to share a pool with the famed Hogwarts School. There would have been just so much poetic justice for _Aldon Blake_ , a halfblood with an obvious visual connection to a Dark, SOW Party family, shoving one of Hogwarts' precious, pureblood champions into the dirt. He would have taken his time to humiliate Hogwarts, enjoyed it for longer than a standard Duelling match, before he finally put the poor player out of their misery. It would have been very unlike his match with the Spaniards, in which Aldon had been all business.

But instead, he has to hope that Hogwarts makes their way out of the pools onto the elimination tree for another shot at them, and it's clear from the AIM game that Hogwarts is not winning this match.

On screen, John has finally found the final Hogwarts player, the Dark Society darling Arcturus Rigel Black, more commonly known as Rigel Black, and suddenly Aldon straightens.

"Rigel Black," he hears John say on the screen, and he can't hear anything else over the wild roaring in his ears. Arcturus Rigel Black looks too much like the liar calling himself Harry Potter. Far, far too much like him.

They aren't related. He knows it from years of tutoring, that the Black and Potter families aren't closely related at all, though their families are reportedly very close. Harriett Potter and Arcturus Rigel Black shouldn't be more than about third cousins, even if they've grown up childhood friends. They shouldn't look like twins, and yet they do, and the Harry Potter he has met is a liar. A _long-term_ liar, and an impostor.

He feels like he has all the pieces, but he can't put them together. There's something there, just on the edge of his thoughts, and it's so close that he can almost _taste_ it. But it's not _coming_ , and the feeling is so frustrating that he shuts his eyes, grits his teeth, searching for it.

And there's a gasp through the room, and Aldon's eyes spring open. On the screen, one of the AIM players fallen, and it takes a second for Aldon to remember. There's only one Hogwarts player left on the field, Rigel Black, and John has him occupied. It can't be Black.

"Cheating," Aldon hears someone in the room muttering, then a louder voice. "Hogwarts is _cheating!_ "

Two AIM Healers Portkey onto the terrain. Whatever the injury is, it's bad, because Potter's face on the screen, his arms signalling his player out, is terrified and grim. He grabs the other Healer and his player, and they're out, and Aldon is standing. The lounge is thick with angry comments and noise, but he can't turn away from the screen. They aren't showing their player anymore, but Hogwarts is still alive, Black battling it out with Kowalski for another few, interminable minutes-

And the keystone explodes. A five-one win that should have been a five-nothing rout, and Aldon is frozen in shock.

If he saw Arcturus Rigel Black in person, he wonders if he would set off his gift just as much as Harry Potter does.

They look too similar, too much like twins instead of like distant cousins.

The Harry Potter he has met is not Harry Potter. The Harry Potter he has met wears a glamour hiding his true face.

The Black and Potter families are close. Just how close are they? Just how close are _Arcturus Rigel Black_ and _Harriett Potter?_

Because _Harriett Potter_ , a halfblood, can't go to Hogwarts. And _Arcturus Rigel Black_ , a pureblood, can. And when they've grown up in Britain, when Britain is what they know, it makes quite a lot more sense that the reason for the ruse is _there, in Britain_ , and not in America at all.

He suddenly has a wild, insane theory that Harry Potter is _Arcturus Rigel Black_. One of them is here, and one of them is there, and Aldon might be insane but he also has the sharp conviction that he's _right_. It fits. It fits perfectly, like a glove.

Aldon hates it.

XXX

AIM borrows the entire Ilvermorny stock of Blood Replenishers for their injured player, and they get the score reversed. Aldon expects no less from Hermione Granger, already climbing the ranks of the BIA, and the entire AIM team looks shell-shocked when they finally come out. Francesca makes a beeline for him, and he wraps her in a warm hug—he can see that she's stressed, and she's tired, and she's overwhelmed, and he shoots John a glare and ushers her off somewhere quiet so that she can just cry into his sweatshirt for a little while.

He spends that time thinking. He has no idea what would compel Harriett Potter and Arcturus Rigel Black to switch places for school. He can't think of anything at Hogwarts that would be worth the risk. It's not that Hogwarts is a bad school—to the contrary, it probably provides the best general education of all wand-using schools. The remainder of the schools tend to support their students specializing into various Mastery programs rather early, so he supposes it could be an ideal education for someone who wanted to be a generalist. But most schools also start their students in generalist programs, and provide a solid general education as well as the Mastery, so that sounds rather weak to his ears.

He can't get over his anger at her—mostly her, because Arcturus Rigel Black can school wherever he damn well wants to school, and he thinks that Arcturus was probably just a close, easy-going friend, who didn't really care whether he went to Hogwarts or not. Black benefits in his own way from the switch, whether he knew it before or not; Black is in Healing, and AIM has one of the best Healing programs in the world.

Aldon is angry at Harriett Potter, because she's a halfblood. She is a halfblood, the same as him, except that Harriett Potter, a Book of Gold heiress as well as a halfblood, has decided that the laws that every other halfblood has to obey don't bloody well apply to her. More than that, he knows enough Wizarding British politics to know that she's gone and ingratiated herself into the SOW Party, becoming best friends with the _Malfoys_ and the _Parkinsons_ , families that have long supported the blood discrimination laws.

Those laws kicked every newblood and halfblood out of Britain. Except for her, because she's decided, with her friend's help, that they shouldn't apply to her. Those laws are a part of what made his sperm donor abandon his Mum, they are what kept Aldon from his birthright, they have caused _so much suffering_ , and there she is, supporting it by standing up as a proud example of pureblood power.

She's a blood traitor. She's a blood traitor as much as any pureblood caught mingling with newbloods and halfbloods is supposed to be a blood traitor, and Aldon hates her. He doesn't need to meet her to know that he hates her. He wants to face her on the field, pummel _her_ into the dust, make her pay for the injustices that he's lived for the past eighteen years. He doesn't even know if Hogwarts will make it through to eliminations, but a part of him wants them to, just so that he can have the pleasure of standing in front of her, the bastard son of Lord Evan Rosier, and beating her in front of all of Wizarding Britain.

There isn't much else he can do. Aldon Blake is a goddamn fucking nobody in Wizarding Britain, no matter who his sperm donor is. No one would believe him anyway, not compared to the Dark Society darling that is Rigel Black. Being a Truth-Speaker means nothing in Wizarding Britain, and he just another halfblood trained abroad. If they pay attention to him at all, it would more likely be to charge him with slander and defamation than anything else. Aldon can go and get confirmation that _Rigel Black_ is really Harriett Potter if he wants, but no one will believe him.

He's furious. He's furious, and he burns with rage, and there is _nothing_ he can do about it.

That night, the professors call them all down to the lounge, brief them on what happened, and invite them all to consider withdrawing. Aldon won't withdraw, not over this—there is just too much at stake. Saoirse and Toby are behind him, as are more than half of their teammates, so Ilvermorny stays in.

The rules are tighter, the second week. They're allowed to go out, but the curfews are strict, and they aren't allowed to go alone. Bizarrely, that works well for him personally—he and Francesca share a hotel, and while most of their mornings are spent in strategy meetings or homework, they can go out by themselves in the afternoons. They hit the National Museum of Scotland one afternoon, the Scott Monument another day, and a few days they even stay in, just cuddling and talking in the lounge. She's a snugglebug, quick to reach for physical affection, and Aldon finds that he doesn't mind at all. He tells her more about himself—about growing up in a single-parent household in Manchester, about his early years in school, about how he loves football more than any magical sport. He tells her about Aunt Lina, his terrifying aunt that's always managed to scrounge up the fees for anything he really wanted or needed that wasn't covered by Mum's budget, and Master Moody, his insane and insanely competent duelling coach. He even mentions being a bastard, talks about how his sperm donor left him and his mother because they weren't pureblooded _._ And in return, she talks about her early years in San Francisco, about hanging out in a corner of her dad's lab at Stanford watching her dad and his colleagues experiment with new materials, about how her mom always brought home the newest computers on the market for her to play with, about summer engineering camp with a dozen boys who _always_ thought they were better than her at coding. She even tells him about the hell that is AIM for her, about not having a wand and being Exceptional and being accommodated in her classes for paper magic alone, and Aldon thinks he's falling more in love with her as every day passes.

It's a week before the next matches. A week, and it's Ilvermorny on the field first on Saturday, standing off against Schwarzenstein on the Rock terrain. Francesca has told him that she and John have bets, on whose new boyfriend can beat the other's, and Aldon is already resolved to win that bet for her.

The Rock terrain is open, without any cover at all, and his team spots the Schwarzenstein team before the match signal even starts. As soon as it does, Ilvermorny is on the offensive—Aldon and Chris are in the forefront while Saoirse draws back to their keystone, humming a protective phrase in Gaelic.

Gerhardt Riemann is a tough dueller, but he's a standard one. There are no tricks with him—he's just strong, and fast, with a deep core to match. Aldon has him outmatched the second he starts throwing runes into the mix, and Aldon hasn't gained his reputation for being the fastest dueller on the circuit for nothing. It takes him seven minutes on the Rock terrain to take Gerhardt out, courtesy of a non-verbal Stunning Spell, and then he turns to help Chris with his opponent.

Chris is holding his own, but with Aldon now free, they finish the second Schwarzenstein player off before she even realizes that her teammate is down. From there, it's tricky—the final Schwarzenstein player is looking to end the game before Ilvermorny can take out her keystone, to decrease the points against her team, but Ilvermorny wants her standing for a five-nothing win. It's a grapple on the other end, Aldon trying to keep her occupied so Chris can blow the keystone, but she _knows_ that Aldon doesn't want to eliminate her from play, so she ignores him in favour of protecting her keystone.

In the end, it's almost a mistake—the spells that he and Chris are casting cross wires, and two minor curses that should have caused inconvenience only hit their opponent at the same time and knock her out. They glance at each other, wincing, and Ilvermorny walks with a three-nothing win.

They go out for dinner that night at a local pub, just him and Francesca and John and Gerhardt, and no one glows more than Francesca who waves the twenty quid that she won off John and uses it to pay for both her dinner and Aldon's. The double date works wonders—John even seems to like him at the end, and Aldon hasn't mentioned anything about Harry Potter, or Arcturus Rigel Black, or AIM's possible team strategies.

Aldon knows by now that AIM has something new up its sleeve, and quite precisely up _John's_ sleeve. John is a terror already, his Natural Legilimency giving him an edge, but he also has a new channelling method. _That_ is obviously Francesca's brainchild, and Aldon would put money on it being somehow tech-related. He _desperately_ wants to ask more about it, because he almost has a Mastery in Magical Theory and he's long been fascinated by the interplay of magic and No-Maj technology, but he can't. He can't, because if they both end up in eliminations, and both AIM and Ilvermorny usually do, he doesn't want there to be any question of cheating for his team. Ilvermorny can win fairly, on their own strategies, and he's not going to ask Francesca about it before the Tournament ends.

The day after he walks out with the Tournament Cup, however, is a different story. He's going to pick her up, kiss her soundly with the Cup in hand, then he's going to take her back to his hotel room and grill her on whatever John has on his arm right now.

He might have fantasized about that moment more than once in the last week. Winning the Triwizard Tournament, getting her to spill her new technology secret, and then snogging her, a serious and determined effort that will have to tide him over until the summer, which is when he hopes he'll be able to see her next.

A few months over the Triwizard Tournament isn't going to be enough with her. He already knows it. He wants more than a few months here, more than maybe even a summer. He needs to tempt her over to England to see him, and he knows exactly how he's going to do it.

Francesca is a romantic. She loves castles and Aldon will take her to every damn castle in the northwest and Scotland if it'll convince her over the pond. And if that doesn't work, there's Blake & Associates, Mum's consulting, research and development firm, and he'll suggest an introduction for her. Whatever her new piece of technology is, it's brilliant, and it deserves funding.

AIM plays the next day and Aldon settles in to watch. He wants to see John's new channelling method for himself, because all he has is a poor description from Sean, Saoirse's friend. Sean doesn't have much training in magical theory, however, so his description involved a lot of waved arms and comments about _a very fast nonverbal Fortis shield._ He's looking forward to making his own impression.

The game opens, and the Patagonia team appears on the top of the City terrain—a bland, six-storey office building in a nondescript town somewhere in the north of England or Scottish lowlands. Aldon is looking forward to playing on the City terrain, if only because it's the kind of close-quarters combat he's used to from schoolyard brawling. He examines the rooftop with some interest, because the team on the roof has a minor advantage, but the screen switches to the AIM team in the basement.

They've made changes to their team lineup. The girl injured last week is gone, replaced by none other than Keladry Mindelan, at sixteen already the top dueller on the North American circuit. Mindelan is carrying what Aldon recognizes as a _naginata_ , the traditional weapon of Japanese noblewomen. It is notoriously difficult to use, particularly for spellcasting, so Keladry must have been training with it since she was a child. She carries it with confidence.

John is beside her, wary brown eyes scanning their surroundings, and their third player is already gone. Scouting, Aldon presumes—he knows nothing about the third AIM player. They move in silence across the floor, and then the building starts shaking.

Aldon doesn't worry for the first half-second. Vibration spells are _de rigueur_ in the Triwizard Tournament, cast nearly every other game. But the vibration doesn't end as it normally does, the structural integrity spells on every terrain don't catch and Aldon knows it's _wrong_. There's something wrong with the spell, or with the terrain, and one of the Patagonian players is screaming, his voice ringing out over the screen—

"The building is going down!" One of the Cascadia players is standing, her dark brown hair flying, expression panicked as she translates the Spanish. "No, no—Juan can't hold it, he says something has taken hold of the spell and is draining him, he can't hold it! _The building is going down!"_

The building is already going down before she's done, and Aldon shoots to his feet.

"Ilvermorny!" he's yelling, scanning the room for his own team. They have their own Healers, they have their own fighters—AIM needs support, and he can hear someone on the Cascadia team yelling too. He spots Olga first, turns to her. "Where are Sarah, Elliott and Marina?"

Olga shakes her head, rising to her feet. "I don't know, but I'll go find them."

"Good—AIM has the best Healers, but these kinds of injuries—" he cuts himself off, looks back up at the screen, which shows only rubble. Rubble, and he knows the AIM team is under that rubble.

Francesca was comm-linked to John when the building went down. She's going to be absolutely shattered. He looks around, flagging down Sean, who seems to be looking for his teammates. "Sean—can you ask your team for Healing support? We should be free and available, in case AIM needs us."

"Sure, Al." Sean nods, glancing at the screen, and shakes his head. "Fuck, man. Fuck Britain, and what they're willing to do to keep us down. I'll get everyone ready."

"Thanks." Aldon takes a second to clap him on the shoulder, and he runs for the AIM board room.

He can't _do_ anything there, of course. The door is barred to him, and all he can do is settle on the faded plush bench across from the boardroom and wait. And wait, and stew, and worry, and wait. He sits, and he waits, and he pictures all the revenge he's wanted to enact for years on Hogwarts and on Wizarding Britain, in the name of himself, on behalf of his Mum, on behalf of every newblood or halfblood exiled from their homeland, and if John or anyone on the AIM team dies for this, the revenge he'll enact for them, too. Not that he knows exactly what he, a halfblood nobody, would do just yet.

He'd like to burn their pretty pureblooded state, if he could. A bomb in the lower levels of the Wizengamot, timed to go off when the Lords are in session, that would do very nicely, maybe. It would echo _this_ , and if he staggered the charges well enough, maybe he could bring down the building.

It's an hour later when Francesca staggers out, looking drained and exhausted, and Aldon catches her as she stumbles.

"They're all fine," she murmurs into his ear. "Well, Sidney isn't fine, his leg is crushed but John and Kel are fine. The ACD worked until Kel could stabilize the building. They asked—asked that I go ask Ilvermorny and Cascadia Healing teams to be on standby."

She's yawning, and Aldon looks down at her, worried. He's worried enough that he leaves off his fantasies of revenge and ignores her mention of the _ACD._ "I've already gotten the teams together. Are _you_ all right?"

"Backlash," she mutters, not that it explains anything, and she burrows her head into his sweatshirt. "Need sleep."

Aldon hesitates, then sticks a Weightless Charm on her and carries her to his room. He doesn't have the key to hers, and it seems like easiest thing to do for the moment. He catches Toby on the way, tells him to go tell the Ilvermorny and Cascadia Healing teams to be on standby, and tucks Francesca into his own double bed. She's out cold, and while he could cuddle up with her, it doesn't seem like a very good idea. In fact, he is pretty sure it is a very bad idea, so he looks around the room and settles himself onto Toby's bed, turning on the telly to distract himself.

She's still out when Toby gets back. Toby takes one look around the room, shakes his head, and sits on the end of his bed.

"Where the hell am I supposed to sleep?" he asks, and Aldon knows from his tone that he's mostly complaining for the sake of complaining. He isn't upset.

"In your bed." He shoots Toby a warning look, tilting his head towards Francesca, who's still asleep.

"And where are you going to sleep?"

"In your bed." Aldon sighs, rolls over to look at his friend without craning his neck. "We've shared a bed often enough, Toby. We can do it for a night, if she doesn't wake up. Though, if she doesn't wake up soon, I think I should call one of the Healers. She's been out for hours."

Toby sighs, rolling his eyes. "We last shared a bed when we were _fifteen_ ," he mutters, but he lets it go, just as Aldon knew he would. "Anyway, I have updates. The strategists and politicos have been meeting all afternoon—AIM is pulling out. It's too dangerous for them now. Cascadia, the United Academy of the ICW, and the Collège d'Alliance are following suit. Derrick approached us about withdrawing, too—the idea is, if Hogwarts wants to win, we let them win, but we make that win absolutely worthless."

Aldon sits bolt upright. "We can't withdraw," he snaps. "Absolutely not, hell no, we're not pulling out. If AIM is out, we need to keep fighting. _Someone_ has to keep fighting, and we're it. We're strong, we're dominating our pool, and if AIM is out, _we_ need to kick Hogwarts out in the eliminations. We need to win this, Toby, for everyone. There's no other option."

"I knew you'd say that." Toby shakes his head again, rueful. "So I said that, but Aldon…"

"What? You know it's true, Toby."

Toby sighs again. "Just—we should think about this. There's more than one way to fight, Al, and you have to think strategically."

"Strategically?" Aldon chokes. "We have to take on Hogwarts! _Someone_ has to take them on, we can't just—just let them walk into a win, let them use this Tournament to say that they're better than the rest of us. Which they _will_ , Toby."

"Think with your head, not with your blinding need for revenge." Toby smacks him on the shoulder. "Look, Al, I know you better than anyone else, and I _know_ you're burning for it. But whoever is behind the attacks, they tried to kill the entire AIM team today. Sidney is going to walk with a limp forever, you know? They had to reconstruct his leg, if it wasn't for the fact that AIM is the best Healing school we've got—" Toby cut himself off.

Aldon blows out a breath, falling back onto Toby's bed. Toby is honest, and it's not the first time he's told Aldon to calm down. Aldon is a hothead, and Toby is much less of one. "Fine. Talk at me. I don't know. I want Hogwarts to pay for this, Toby, I want all of Wizarding Britain to pay."

"You want them to pay for your whole life, and we don't even technically know if the Hogwarts team is _involved_." Even if Toby's words are harsh, his tone is not. "Hogwarts could be victims as much as the rest of us. But if we withdraw, we along with the other schools, it's actually a bigger win than just beating them into the dirt would be. It's a different kind of symbol—an international expression of disapproval, and even if Hogwarts _wins_ , they'll never really have won. A win is worthless if half the major players walk."

Aldon glances at him, but his mouth twists. He doesn't like it, not at all, and every cell in his body is screaming against the idea of a withdrawal. But Toby is smart, and he's never really led Aldon wrong. "Let me think about it, Toby."

There's a rustle from Aldon's bed, and he glances over. Francesca is waking up, looking very bleary, and Aldon can't help going over to her. "Hey, Francesca. You all right?"

XXX

AIM withdraws the next day, with a hard statement being read out by Hermione Granger. In some ways, Aldon is surprised that it's _not_ being read out by Harry Potter, because a statement from a Book of Gold heiress would have the most impact, but it does make sense that it isn't. Harry Potter is _not_ Harriett Potter, and he's probably trying to avoid attention.

Aldon doesn't really care anymore. He's stewing over it, and over Toby's words, and there are meetings every day. More schools are withdrawing—the United Academy of the ICW and the Collège d'Alliance on Tuesday, then Cascadia and Escuela Maya on Wednesday morning. Ilvermorny is holding out, Aldon and Saoirse being the primary spokespeople against withdrawing, but Olga is already making clear that she thinks they should be withdrawing, and Chris is wavering. Toby, too, is talking about the advantages of withdrawing on a larger scale—they stand united with the other schools, and it is a bigger political statement than a win on the field.

He's not wrong. Toby isn't wrong, but they're a strong team, and there are a lot of personal reasons in the room to continue. Every student gets one chance at a Triwizard Tournament over seven years of school—only fourth-years and up can try out. Everyone in that room worked hard to get onto the team, and no one wants to leave. Aldon and Saoirse least of all—for Aldon, there's his personal revenge, being able to appear on a screen in Wizarding Britain showing off everything he's worked his life to earn as a giant _fuck you_ to the pureblood establishment, and for Saoirse, there is the hope that she brings to the Irish people. They don't want to pull out, and they're two-thirds of the players, and that speaks.

By Wednesday afternoon, they're evenly split—seven votes to remain, seven votes to withdraw. They call a break, and Aldon and Saoirse go to Tesco's for soda and crisps. Soda and crisps are not exactly guaranteed to smooth things over in the strategy room, but maybe it will keep them all from throttling each other.

They're halfway back, when Aldon _just_ sees something out of the corner of his eyes, the strange undulating signal of a Disillusionment Charm, and he shoves Saoirse out of the way. She goes down, the Killing Curse missing them both by inches, and Aldon has a runic _Finite Incantatem_ spell on his fingertips, slamming it onto the ground as broadly as he can.

Two wizards appear, and Aldon's wand is drawn. The streets are empty, fortunately, which he bets the wizards counted on before they attacked. Aldon hears a whisper of Gaelic from the ground, and a wild wind whips up, slamming into the two mages, tearing at their robes. Aldon's spellwork is clean, fast, hard—he knows how to duel, and he's _seventeen years old_ , and that means he doesn't have the Trace on him anymore. He blasts one into the nearest building, knocking him out the old-fashioned way, then turns his wand on the other.

The other wizard doesn't expect him to have a wand, or to be willing to use it. That wizard stares at him, wide-eyed for a minute, and turns tail and runs. Aldon hexes him anyway, a Total Body Bind that has him flat on the ground, motionless.

He exchanges a look with Saoirse, whose blue eyes are dark with anger.

"Well," she says, and Aldon nods in agreement.

They don't like it. They don't like it, but Ilvermorny withdraws, and it's Aldon standing in front of the assembly on the steps of the ICW on Saturday morning. It's Aldon because Toby and Saoirse back him, and it's Aldon because he's their star player, the Captain of the Ilvermorny Duelling Club, and it's Aldon because Aldon is the halfblood bastard son of the Lord Evan Rosier and he wears his lineage in his dark hair and gold eyes, sharp nose and chin and cheekbones.

He is a younger, somewhat slighter Lord Rosier, and that's what he knows will be plastered across the screen in Wizarding Britain.

"We, the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Triwizard Team, have regretfully determined that we must withdraw from the Triwizard Tournament, in alliance with our fellow schools across North America, Europe, and Australia," he reads out from the sheet of paper in his hands, anger burning in his throat, Toby on his left and Saoirse on his right. "This is not a decision that was made lightly; Ilvermorny School has historically had a strong performance in the Triwizard Tournament, and this year is no different."

He looks up, looks at each of the gathered reporters—more today, he thinks, than ever before. The _Daily Prophet_ is snapping pictures of him, the loud clicking annoying, while the _American Standard_ and _La Presse Magique_ have their recording orbs trained on him. They'll take captures of him later, better photos off their recording orbs. Aldon ignores them and continues.

"We are deeply concerned about the pattern of attacks against the American Institute of Magic. It seems that the integrity of these games is irreparably tarnished, with unknown parties determined to see that Hogwarts School, a bastion of pureblood supremacy, come to victory by any means possible. But there is no meaning to victory without fairness, and these games are not fair.

"Ilvermorny School further echoes the comments made by Die Schwarzenstein Schule für Hexerei und Zauberei. We, in the strongest of terms, condemn these attacks as a blood-oriented hate crime. We have seen where these attitudes have led, not even a century ago, and we stand with our allies in saying, _never again_. Thank you."

He steps down from the steps, not looking at any of the reporters and particularly avoiding the _Daily Prophet_. Their bags are already packed, and the plane is waiting to take from directly from London. Francesca is waiting for him there, and it takes Aldon less time than he expects to talk John into switching seats with him for the flight back.

Francesca is glaring at the back of the seat in front of her, her arms crossed over her chest. They've had a little over two weeks together—two and a half weeks, if he is precise, but he's spent more than a few hours with her every day, and he is coming to know her. She's angry, bitterly so, miserable.

Five hours. He has _five hours_ left with her, right now, and he knows exactly how he wants to spend those five hours.

"Hey," he says, slipping one arm around her shoulders. "Know what one good thing about there being no Triwizard Tournament is?"

She glances over at him, annoyed but willing to listen. "What?"

He leans closer to whisper into her ear. "You can tell me all about your _ACD_ , and I can tell you all about my Mum's research and development firm, and my Mastery in Magical Theory."

The look on her face is priceless.

XXX

One five-hour plane ride is not enough. It's not enough, and Aldon doesn't have the materials on hand to create a comm orb with her. Instead, they turn to letters, and Aldon is writing letters three times a week to the American Institute of Magic. Toby and Saoirse are teasing him about it, on and off, but Aldon figures it's a fair comeback for all the teasing he's done of them over the years. It's Aldon's first serious relationship, and he wants to do it _right_ , and anyway he _wants_ to write to her three times a week. He loves reading what she says, and he loves writing back just as much.

She's brilliant. She's utterly brilliant, and even if Aldon doesn't have the No-Maj science background to keep up with her yet, he's determined to learn. She's agreed to come to Britain in the summer, to see him and meet his Mum, and he's already written Mum about a new potential project. Mum is more interested in Francesca as his girlfriend than she is in Francesca's project, but Aldon is sure that'll change as soon as she sees the ACD. The ACD is too explosive, and in one way, AIM's withdrawal from the Tournament is a good thing for Blake & Associates: had AIM proceeded to the eliminations round with the ACD, Francesca would have had a lineup of partnerships to choose from. But she doesn't, so there's only Blake & Associates, and Aldon thinks Mum's firm is a good one, not least because he will be there.

They manage to meet up once, just once—she has a major dance competition at Cascadia, and even if Aldon has never been interested in magical dance in his entire life, he goes along to see it. Saoirse usually goes on these trips, if only to meet up with Sean and some of her other Irish friends, and Toby comes along just because Aldon is going. Francesca doesn't win it, though Aldon thinks she _should_ have, but he's there to wrap his arms around her in mixed congratulations and sympathy when she takes third place.

The competition is just after her birthday, so Aldon is sure to have his present on hand for her—a miniature model of Edinburgh Castle that lights up when she touches it with her magic. She gasps, delighted, and he waves it off as _no big deal_ even though he's spent more than twenty hours figuring out how to craft it in magic. She looks up at him, seeing through his shrug, and reaches on her tiptoes to kiss him.

He still follows the Tournament, if not very strictly. He's too angry about it. Hogwarts wins against Beauxbatons, no surprise, and against Durmstrang, and the latter game at least looks tampered. It doesn't matter, because the powers that be in Wizarding Britain have decided that Hogwarts must win, that Hogwarts is going to win, and Aldon wonders with a twist of his mouth if the Hogwarts players even realize that without the withdrawals, they may not have even advanced. They are good, but AIM was better.

Ilvermorny was better.

For the final, Aldon joins his friends, his fellow teammates, in the Grand Atrium. It's Hogwarts School against the National Magic School of China, and against the odds, Aldon hopes that the famed Chinese school pounds Hogwarts into the pavement. The National Magic School of China doesn't discriminate on blood, the whole concept apparently not even noticeable against their usual division of heirloom-casters and paper-casters, but neither do they care about the issue at all. Aldon will take what he can get—another NMSC win is still better than a Hogwarts win, because at least it can't be used to brag about pureblood superiority.

The final is played on Forest, and the Chinese team appears first. Queenscove's cousin, Fei Long Lin, snaps open her fan and Aldon hears a few heartfelt sighs around the room. She's the international star of these games, articles published singing her praises, and even if Aldon thinks it's a bit ridiculous he's happy that at least it isn't the _Hogwarts team_ enjoying the fame. Fuck Hogwarts. Fuck Hogwarts, and their team, and especially fuck _Rigel Black_ who isn't Rigel Black and is really a halfblood princess named Harriett Potter.

But then the Hogwarts team appears, and Aldon leans forward, because _graveyard is not a terrain_. They aren't where they're supposed to be, and when the Killing Curses start flying, Aldon realizes that the Hogwarts team was never a part of the cheating at all. The end goal of pushing them forward wasn't to win, but was to put them in a position to _capture_ them.

Aldon watches, a grudging almost-respect for Potter appearing as she focuses on getting her teammates out. She saves at least one of their lives, drawing pursuit away and fighting desperately to buy time for her teammates. She's screaming that they want _her_ , only her, and she gets them out before she's overwhelmed, dragged to a tombstone and lashed onto it, before they throw a potion into her face and dispel the glamour and all the protective charms that she is wearing.

Ilvermorny doesn't know who she is, and the Atrium breaks into chatter. But Aldon knows, Aldon and everyone else in Wizarding Britain know exactly who she damn well is, because she wears her heritage on her face, the same as Aldon. Her dark, messy hair could only have come from her father, and her green eyes that are brighter than natural could only have come from her mother. She is Harriett Potter, and there is no point in hiding it, though her strategist blusters and tries.

A wizard is resurrected, but the girl makes it out. She, with her strategist acting as her eyes behind her, picks her moment right and stabs the resurrected wizard in the gut, before turning on the spot and Disapparating.

"Well," Aldon says, turning to Toby and Saoirse, who are staring at the screen. He doesn't know yet what will come, but the Dark Society pureblood darling that is _Rigel Black_ has just been publicly unmasked. "This will be interesting."

XXX

A week later, an article appears on the front page of the _American Standard_. It's a tell-all interview with Arcturus Rigel Black, better known as Archie Black, who has schooled at AIM the last four years. He wanted to be a Healer, he explains, because his mother died of illness, and his cousin Harry Potter, a potions prodigy, wanted to study Potions under Master Severus Snape. They switched, and they broke the law to do it, because they both had things that they wanted, because they had each other, and because they _could_.

Even hearing more about it, Aldon hates it. He has no reason to think that Archie is lying now, and he even believes Archie when he says that he and his cousin didn't know what they were walking into. But none of that changes the fact that what they did was a middle finger to every other halfblood and newblood in Wizarding Britain, a sign that they cared for themselves and for no one else as long as they got what they wanted. Halfbloods and newbloods in Wizarding Britain have preciously little—no Hogwarts education, no jobs in government or government-funded enterprises, and that's just what's enshrined in law—but they have solidarity in each other and in their shared experience of exile, and Harry Potter and Archie Black either did not think about this or they did not care when they put the ruse in place. And with Harriett Potter being as powerful as she is, Aldon knows how the pureblood establishment will treat this, if she plays her cards right.

Harriett Potter is special. She's different from all the other halfbloods and newbloods, and while she might have broken the law, she's proven that she deserved it. No one else needs to try, no change in the law need be made, because Harriett Potter is simply so exceptional that no other halfblood or newblood could have achieved it. The pureblood establishment will give her a slap on the wrist for the ruse, but with her magical power and her connections, she will not truly be punished. Not if she keeps supporting pureblood supremacy the way that she has for the past four years. She will become an exception to the rules, and that will be that. The only thing _unexpected,_ from Aldon's point of view, is that she's run.

She's run, and the real Black is in the news, saying that the ruse was something they entered into when they were eleven, saying that he'll fight against the laws. And that, _that_ is far more interesting to Aldon than anything else.

The most interesting thing about the blood purity laws is that they are not really about blood purity at all. They are a weapon for control, a method of dividing the masses and turning them on themselves, and blood status often takes a backseat to whether someone agrees or disagrees with the governing establishment. Halfbloods raised in magic who play their cards right may find that they're legally purebloods, and purebloods who don't toe the line may have their status stripped, revealed publicly as halfbloods. Consider Saoirse, who is pureblood through six generations and who can trace her wizarding heritage back to Cùchulainn himself: she and her family will never be legal purebloods, not so long as they fight to protect their traditional ways. Aldon doesn't care what blood someone has—he only cares what they _do_ with it.

Harriett Potter might be a halfblood, but for four years she supported the pureblood edifice. For four years, Arcturus Rigel Black remained silent. And now, even if Harry Potter could have stayed, using all her connections and spinning her own uniqueness to save herself, she has run, and Arcturus Rigel Black is in the news proclaiming he'll return to Britain to fight against the blood discrimination laws in their entirety.

Aldon can support that. He will never like what they did, and he may never like _them_ , but it's what they do going forward that's important.

"He's going to be arrested," Aldon hears Toby mutter, reaching over his shoulder to tap Archie's last line: _We are all mages, and we all have the ability to achieve greatness_. "Something like this? Potter might be gone, but Black's going to be _arrested_ for this."

"Then I better be there too," Aldon mutters back. He looks at his two best friends—they don't have any secrets between them, within the three of them, and both know exactly why Aldon says so. He is the son of Lord Evan Rosier, and he looks the part. Saoirse nods, a silent agreement, and Toby just looks resigned.

"I need less angry friends," he complains, but they know he doesn't really mean it. Toby's angry too, he's just better at keeping it under wraps than the two of them. "Fine. To hell we go, and let's hope we come back."

When Arcturus Rigel Black is arrested at Terminal M at Heathrow Aeroport in London, it is with Aldon Étienne Blake, Truth-Speaker, the spitting image of a young Lord Evan Rosier, at his side demanding to know the charges.

XXX

 _ANs:_ _Thanks to Elsin for the beta-read! Obviously, most of this was written outside the context of the exchange and a good half of it pre-existed the exchange, and I only had the extraordinary luck to have it sitting around, half-finished in an infant-like state, when the exchange started... so I finished it. Sort of. There could be more parts to this later, but I think we're at a good stopping point here._

 _There are so many things I enjoyed writing about this. This Aldon has, on one hand, a close relationship with his parents, considerably more confidence and comfort in his own skin, and he's generally less secretive; on the other, his rage issues twisted into something deeper, long-lasting, rooted in this sense of what he should have had and doesn't. Of course, he doesn't see the other side of himself in rev arc, where he actually did have the wealth and nobility; instead, he imagines the best of it, without considering that he wouldn't have had his mother and his relationship with Lina would be fundamentally altered. This Aldon also has a different skill set, where on one hand he can duel, but on the other he doesn't have the eye to manipulation and political thinking that turn him into a spymaster in rev arc._

 _All of this roots into his reaction to Harry's ruse itself. In rev arc, as a halfblood hiding to be at Hogwarts, he admires Harry because she means he's not alone; in this spinoff, he's enraged by it, because Harry is a physical representation of a world where his father loved him and Christie enough to acknowledge them publicly. He's only more enraged because he's been raised very differently - instead of shielding him from many inequalities of the world and raising him largely as a wizarding, noble, and even pureblood child, as the Potters and Blacks do (Archie and Harry are both homeschooled prior to Hogwarts/AIM, they are isolated within a wizarding, if Light, world surrounded by magic, and when the Marriage Law is on the table, Harry is engaged to Archie), Lina and Christie raise Aldon knowing that the world won't be kind to him and teaching him that if he wants anything, he'll need to fight for it (he grows up in a blue-collar townhouse in Manchester, he goes to Muggle primary school because it's cheap daycare for a single mom, he learns through his duelling lessons that he must learn to defend himself because the world is dangerous for people like him). He simply can't imagine a world where Archie and Harry are so sheltered that they don't realize the implications of their actions._

 _Finally, an interesting point I always try to put in is how differently "belonging" is defined and treated by both worlds. In Wizarding Britain, belonging is largely defined on blood, so whatever their experiences, Harry and Aldon can never truly be accepted as equals because of their blood-status, but internationally educated halfbloods and Muggleborns define belonging through the experience of their shared oppression, with needing to school abroad being foundational. This Aldon, of course, is fully in the latter camp, so he looks at Harry and sees her as yet another pureblood oppressing him._

 _Hoping everyone enjoyed - or, at least, that it made you think._


End file.
